Ionic Partners, a pioneer in investing in and operating Second Chasm software companies, announces the appointment of John Jonson as Principal, Capital Formation.
March 8, 2023 – Ionic Partners (“Ionic”) announced today that John Jonson has joined the firm to lead Ionic’s capital formation efforts, bringing his decades of experience as a leader in fundraising, investment entity structuring, and business development.
“We created Ionic to bring to bear world class software and technology expertise to an untapped part of the market. As we are now poised to apply our team’s experience and skills to a targeted and significant opportunity set, we are thrilled to have someone of John’s extensive background and deep relationships on board to help enable this inflection point,” said Donald Park, Co-Founder & President of Ionic Partners. He added, “John has a proven track record of translating unique manager strategies across various industries for major institutions and family offices. As we expand our offering to investors across both the equity and credit spectrum, John will be an essential addition to our team.”
“Translating top tier investment strategies to all types of investors has been a gratifying experience during my career. Having been an allocator for family offices as well as a university endowment, I understand and enjoy the substantial process in finding optimal fits,” said Jonson.
He added “Donald and Andy have created at Ionic an exceptional team at an opportune time. With experienced, discerning, and steady hands on the wheel, they and their team have become one of the most stellar emerging software managers in one of the most attractive investment spaces for the coming decade. The combination of finding the right companies along with Ionic’s specialized focus and expertise is a unique and highly appealing value proposition to many, and I’m incredibly excited to join and contribute.”
Jonson joins Ionic as its third Principal, joining Audrey Pang and Tanner Cerand who joined the firm from Vista Equity Partners and focus on Operations and Origination, respectively. Prior to joining Ionic, John served as Head of Capital Formation at Pantera Capital, the first blockchain hedge and venture fund in the United States and considered one of the pre-eminent firms in the space. While at Pantera, John led the successful raise of the $1.3B Blockchain Fund. Prior to that, John was a Managing Director at Lyrical Partners from 2013 to 2020, where he led the single and multi-family office, university endowment and institutional capital formation efforts, and also helped source, diligence and manage the firm’s venture investments. Before Lyrical, John was a co-founding Managing Principal of Capricorn Investment Group, originally the single-family office for Jeff Skoll, the first president of eBay. John served as Capricorn’s Chief Operating Officer and led Strategic Business Development for Capricorn and its affiliates. During his tenure, the firm was an early investor in Tesla, VitaminWater, SpaceX, TrueCar, HeartFlow, and Yammer.
John received a BA in Public Policy from Duke University and an MBA with high honors from the International Business Program at the Moore School at the University of South Carolina, with a focus on Japanese finance. He has served on the University Endowment’s Investment Oversight Committee since 2009.
About Ionic Partners
Ionic Partners brings together over 50 years of global software industry expertise as both operators and investors. The company is led by Andy Tryba and Donald Park, formerly of ESW Capital and Vista Equity Partners, respectively. Ionic has experience investing in businesses as entrepreneurs from startup to growth stage, to IPO and Fortune 500-scale. They have also been advisers and partners to management teams and boards. Ionic acquires recurring revenue software businesses and creates value through a proven operating model, a dedicated team of software operators and executives, and change management experts with deep experience in building world-class culture, processes, and successful outcomes.
