Blackstone Growth (BXG)
Growth Equity Reimagined®: Through revenue acceleration opportunities, operational support and access to Blackstone’s unparalleled resources, we’re redefining growth equity.
Annual Portfolio Revenue
$225B+
SF of Warehouse Logistics Assets[1]
1.1B+
Global Offices
28
Data Scientists and Engineers
50+
Operating Professionals[1]
200+
Employees Covered by Group
Purchasing Program[1]
~700k
Note: All numbers are as of December 31, 2023 unless otherwise indicated. Operating professionals include Blackstone employees and senior advisors.
1. As of September 31, 2022.
Leveraging our world-class platform…
We are seasoned growth equity investors backed by the resources of the world’s largest alternative asset manager. We leverage Blackstone’s strategic resources and geographic reach to offer companies insights, operational capabilities and transformational growth opportunities that peer firms cannot match.
To help companies scale efficiently
We equip our companies with the tools and know-how to expand rapidly while minimizing operational strains. Blackstone’s 100+ senior operating professionals and advisors, including leading technology executives, help our companies develop pattern recognition, pursue new growth opportunities and expand their global footprints.
And become global champions.
We have decades of experience building world-class companies and helping them reach the “end state” in terms of operational excellence. We can anticipate the unique operational pressures that growth-stage companies face and draw upon our global base of resources to address them.
How BXG Adds Value
We don’t just identify market leaders – we help build them.
Leveraging experience drawn from decades of building businesses, we offer targeted support at the most critical moments in a company’s development. Our large team of operating partners and highly curated portfolio allow us to be a better partner to high-growth companies navigating execution risk.
Blackstone’s scale creates unique opportunities for revenue acceleration. Access to our network of portfolio companies helps entrepreneurs grow their customer base and make connections across a range of industries and geographies. An in-house team of data scientists helps our companies’ management teams optimize revenue and product development opportunities. In addition, our global footprint can support our companies’ expansion across the world’s major economies.
Spotlight: Enabling Growth at ISN, A Leading Contractor Management Software Provider
As ISN’s first outside investor, we saw the opportunity to use our network and wide-ranging expertise to help bring ISN’s world-class platform and customer service to more clients – enabling them to more effectively manage risk, train and develop their workforce, and track progress towards their ESG goals.
BXG is able to help support ISN’s revenue acceleration through several channels:
Facilitating 70+ client introductions within the portfolio and across our network.
Leveraging our data science team to improve their product and pricing strategy.
Supporting expansion of their customer base into new verticals, such as construction and consumer goods.
We build world-class enterprises by providing companies with the resources and expertise they need to scale in smart, efficient ways. Our experienced operations team helps companies optimize their spending, processes, and long-term strategy, while our capital markets professionals offer essential guidance on everything from IPOs and debt financing to M&A.
Spotlight: Redefining the Music Industry With Epidemic Sound, A Royalty-Free Music Library for Creators
We invested in Epidemic Sound after recognizing its potential to help redefine the music industry globally by paving a new way forward in music sharing. As the explosion in digital content continues, we’re excited to back Epidemic’s mission to soundtrack the internet for a new generation of content creators.
Blackstone is helping Epidemic Sound by:
Working with Co-Founder and CEO, Oscar Höglund, to help build out his management team and a diverse board.
Supporting the company in the sourcing, evaluation and execution of new strategic opportunities.
Optimizing pricing and packaging to help create products that appeal to different customer segments.
Leveraging relationships across our networks to help Epidemic Sound build partnerships with key social platforms and reach a wider audience of content creators.
Blackstone’s network provides us with exceptional access to experienced executives across industries, making it easier for portfolio companies to build effective boards and operational teams. In addition, our leadership and talent development experts help companies optimize their organizational design to accommodate accelerated growth.
Spotlight: Building Bumble’s Leadership Team
When we partnered with Bumble, we prioritized building a best-in-class leadership team that could strengthen the company’s leading position in the fast-growing digital connections space. In 2021, Bumble held an IPO that valued the company at over $9B.
Recognizing her strong vision for the company, founder Whitney Wolfe Herd was named CEO of Bumble’s parent firm upon our acquisition. She has since become the youngest female entrepreneur to ever take a company public.
Bumble has been able to tap into Blackstone’s global network of experts, building a management team and board comprised of current and former executives from leading media and technology companies.
Bumble’s board and management team are both majority-female, reflecting Bumble and BXG’s commitment to building inclusive workplaces.
OUR TEAM
Our team brings together deep sectoral and industry expertise, drawn from years of experience at the world’s leading growth equity firms.
Jon Korngold
Senior Managing Director and Head of Blackstone Growth
Jon Korngold
Senior Managing Director and Head of Blackstone Growth
Prior to joining Blackstone in 2019, Jon was a member of General Atlantic’s Management and Investment Committees, Chairman of the firm’s Portfolio Committee, and led the firm’s Global Financial Services and Healthcare sectors. Jon also previously worked at Goldman Sachs in the Principal Investment Area and in the Mergers & Acquisitions groups in London and New York, respectively. Jon has spent extensive time in China, where he studied Mandarin Chinese at Peking University and did pro bono work for the U.S. Embassy’s Foreign Commercial Service in Beijing.
Jon is active with Harvard University, where he is a member of the Harvard College Fund’s Executive Committee and where he Co-Chairs fundraising for his College class. In addition, he is a member of The Council on Foreign Relations, has been an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School, a member of the Rockefeller University Council, a member of the New York Weill Cornell Council, a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO), a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, a Commissioned Kentucky Colonel, and a member of the American Museum of Natural History’s Advisory Council. Jon has also served as a Trustee of the Cleveland Clinic, of The Dalton School, of The Central Park Conservancy and of the 92nd Street Y, among other institutions.
Jon has also been recognized for his efforts in the financial services sector, including having been ranked #1 in Institutional Investor’s list of global Financial Technology dealmakers on multiple occasions.
He received an AB in Economics from Harvard College, graduating with Honors, and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School.
Ann Chung
Senior Managing Director
Ann Chung
Senior Managing Director
Prior to joining Blackstone, Ms. Chung held roles at Fremont Private Holdings, the direct investing arm of the Bechtel family office, and J.H. Whitney Capital Partners where she led all consumer and consumer-impacted investments. Ms. Chung has also held positions with Swander Pace Capital, L Catterton, and Wachovia Securities and served on the boards of Alphia, Accupac, and Merrick Pet Care.
Ms. Chung currently serves on the Board of Directors of Oatly, Spanx and Supergoop. She received her MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and her BS from the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia.
Ram Jagannath
Senior Managing Director
Ram Jagannath
Senior Managing Director
Before joining Blackstone, Mr. Jagannath was a founding Partner of Navab Capital Partners (NCP), where he was Head of Healthcare and a member of NCP’s Management and Investment Committees. Prior to NCP, he was a Managing Director of The Carlyle Group, focused on healthcare investments in Carlyle’s flagship US Buyout private equity fund. During his twelve years at Carlyle, Mr. Jagannath was a member of the teams which invested in One Medical Group (NASDAQ: ONEM), Pharmaceutical Product Development (NASDAQ: PPD), X-Chem (GHO Capital), Ortho Clinical Diagnostics (NASDAQ: OCDX), Healthscope Ltd. (ASX: HSO), and HCR ManorCare (NYSE: HCP/ProMedica). Previously, he worked at Genstar Capital and Thomas Weisel Capital Partners.
Mr. Jagannath currently serves on the Board of Directors of HealthEdge, Cryoport, ZO Skin Health, Ginger and Hydrogen Health. He also serves on the Board of Visitors of the Duke University Pratt School of Engineering and on the Kellogg School of Management Private Equity Advisory Council, as well as on the Board of Directors of Centering Healthcare Institute. Mr. Jagannath was previously a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Mr. Jagannath received a B.S.E. in Biomedical and Electrical Engineering with a minor in Economics from Duke University, a J.D. from the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, and an M.B.A. from the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management. After Duke, he was a Fulbright Scholar in Economic Development at the University of Zagreb in Croatia.
Vincent Letteri
Senior Managing Director
Vincent Letteri
Senior Managing Director
Prior to joining Blackstone in 2020, Mr. Letteri spent thirteen years at KKR and he was a founding member of their Next Generation Technology (NGT) Fund, where he played a lead investment role. Before that, Mr. Letteri was part of KKR Capstone where he worked across a number of KKR portfolio companies. Mr. Letteri spent several years in Hong Kong assisting in the development of KKR Capstone’s Asia operations. He also led KKR’s ESG -focused Green Portfolio Program for the region.
Before joining KKR, Mr. Letteri worked as a Business Development Manager for Nike helping to lead and grow Nike’s online business. He also worked for McKinsey & Company in Boston where he focused on private equity, technology, and consumer goods companies.
Mr. Letteri holds a BA with Honors in Economics from Harvard College where he received the John Harvard, Harvard Club and Harvard College scholarships for outstanding academic achievement. He holds an MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.
Mr. Letteri is a Board Member at ISN Software, Epidemic Sound, and the Blackstone Charitable Foundation, and a National Board Member of Citizen Schools.
Paul Morrissey
Senior Managing Director
Paul Morrissey
Senior Managing Director
Prior to joining Blackstone in 2021, Paul was a partner at Battery Ventures, focusing on later-stage growth equity investments. From 2012 to 2016, Paul was based in Battery’s San Francisco office before moving to London in 2016 to open Battery’s presence in Europe. At Battery Ventures, Paul was involved in Battery portfolio companies including Guardsquare, InCloudCounsel, PageUp, PrimeRevenue, Quinyx, Shippeo, Intacct (acquired by Sage), WebPT (acquired by Warburg Pincus), Gainsight (acquired by Vista Equity Partners) and Nitro (ASX:NTO). Prior to Battery, Paul spent time with Goldman Sachs’ investment-banking division focusing on the technology, media and telecom sectors.
Paul graduated from Stanford University, where he earned a BS in economics and played four years on the varsity men’s tennis team.
Yifat Oron
Senior Managing Director
Yifat Oron
Senior Managing Director
Before joining Vertex, Ms. Oron was a technology investment banking associate at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York. Previously, she spent three years at the Directorate of R&D of the Israeli Ministry of Defense where she achieved the rank of Lieutenant in the Economics, Budget & Control Department.
Ms. Oron holds an M.B.A. from Tel-Aviv University and a B.Sc. in Economics and Management from the Technion, also known as the Israel Institute of Technology.
Vishal Amin
Managing Director
Vishal Amin
Managing Director
Vishal is a graduate of Duke University and currently serves on the board of Experience Camps.
Brian Dunlap
Managing Director
Brian Dunlap
Managing Director
Prior to joining Blackstone in 2019, Mr. Dunlap was a member of TPG’s Software & Enterprise Technology investment team spanning both TPG Growth and TPG Capital, leading minority growth and buyout investments in horizontal and vertical market software, EdTech, FinTech, HCIT and Cybersecurity. Additionally, Mr. Dunlap served as Head of Technology for TPG RISE, which was co-founded alongside Bono and Jeff Skoll.
Prior to TPG, Mr. Dunlap worked at JMI Equity, a software specialist investment firm, where he focused exclusively on investments in SaaS and cybersecurity. Prior to JMI, Mr. Dunlap worked at General Atlantic in New York, focusing on growth equity investments in enterprise software, consumer internet, and financial technology. Half Peruvian and fluent in Portuguese, Mr. Dunlap moved from New York to São Paulo in 2010 as an early member of GA’s Latin America investment team, and executed technology investments in Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, and Peru. Prior to General Atlantic, Mr. Dunlap worked in M&A at Morgan Stanley in New York.
Mr. Dunlap received a B.A. in Public Policy from Stanford University, an M.A. in International Policy Studies from the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford, and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Mr. Dunlap serves on the Impact Investing Advisory Board for Echoing Green, a leading non-profit providing seed funding to social enterprises worldwide.
Moez Gharbi
Managing Director
Moez Gharbi
Managing Director
Mr. Gharbi joined Blackstone in 2012 and was a member of the Private Equity team prior to moving to BXG. Within the Private Equity group, Mr. Gharbi was focused on buyout transactions in Europe and was involved in multiple Private Equity portfolio companies including Stow, Scout24, Tangerine and ICS.
Mr. Gharbi earned master’s degrees in Management Studies from both HEC Paris and the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Mike Kirkman
Managing Director
Mike Kirkman
Managing Director
Before joining Blackstone, Mr. Kirkman was a Director at GI Partners where he helped lead investment activity in the healthcare and software sectors. During his time at GI, he invested in and served on the boards of such companies as Netsmart, Generate Life Sciences, Clinical Ink, and MRI Software. Prior to GI, Mr. Kirkman was with JLL Partners in New York where he focused on private equity investments in the North American healthcare and building products industries. He began his career in investment banking at Houlihan Lokey and JPMorgan. Mr. Kirkman currently serves on the board of the San Francisco Private Equity Network.
Mr. Kirkman holds a BS from the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Ramzi Ramsey
Managing Director
Ramzi Ramsey
Managing Director
Prior to Blackstone, Ramzi was a Partner at SoftBank’s Vision Fund and led investing activity in the enterprise software sector. Prior to SoftBank, Ramzi was an investor at TCV (Technology Crossover Ventures) and began his investing career at TA Associates. Ramzi has been a board member or investor in companies including Attentive Mobile, Automation Anywhere, Avvo, Cloudinary, Dynamo, Financial Software Systems, Hotel Engine, Ion Trading, Nerdy (NYSE: NRDY), OneTrust, Qualtrics (NASDAQ: XM), Rover (NASDAQ: ROVR), SeatGeek, Wall Street Systems, and Zillow (NASDAQ: Z). From 2019 through 2021, Ramzi was recognized as a Top 40 under 40 growth equity investor by GrowthCap.
Ramzi received his B.S. from Carnegie Mellon University with university and college honors and completed his MBA from Harvard Business School.
Katie Storer
Managing Director
Katie Storer
Managing Director
Before joining Blackstone, Ms. Storer worked at The Carlyle Group focused on Consumer & Retail investments as part of the U.S. Buyout Fund. Previously, Ms. Storer also held roles at Wellspring Capital Management and Deutsche Bank.
Ms. Storer received her MBA from Harvard Business School and her B.S. in business administration from Washington & Lee University.
“After meeting with the team at Blackstone, I knew they were the right partners to grow our business and scale our purpose.”
“Partnering with Blackstone is the best decision I’ve made in my career.”
“BXG’s backing motivates us towards new thinking more than our company ever has.”
DEEP SECTOR EXPERTISE
We aim to partner with companies whose ambition and market opportunity have outgrown traditional growth equity firms but have not yet outgrown Blackstone.
Consumer
Partnering with the consumer “brands of tomorrow.”
Enterprise Software
Supporting category-defining and durable franchise software and services.
Financial Services
Backing companies reshaping the financial system.
Healthcare
Investing in healthcare businesses that aim to reduce costs and improve outcomes.
Consumer Technology
Building global leaders in consumer-facing technology.
“Unlike traditional growth equity firms, BXG can draw upon Blackstone’s 35+ years of experience helping world-class companies navigate the “end state.” We can apply those lessons, along with our differentiated resources, to help transform growth-stage companies into global leaders.”
OUR INVESTMENTS
BXG invests in promising growth-stage companies and advises on select investments across the firm.
All
BXG Portfolio
Investments LED BY BXG TEAM
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Although BXG team members participated in the evaluation of Automox, Bright Health, Celonis, Chainalysis, HealthEdge, Hotel Engine, Snowflake, Weee! and Wiz, the investments were funded by different Blackstone vehicles outside of BXG whose overall strategy and terms may vary significantly from any BXG vehicle.
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Although BXG team members participated in the evaluation of Automox, Bright Health, Celonis, Chainalysis, HealthEdge, Hotel Engine, Snowflake, Weee! and Wiz, the investments were funded by different Blackstone vehicles outside of BXG whose overall strategy and terms may vary significantly from any BXG vehicle.
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Although BXG team members participated in the evaluation of Automox, Bright Health, Celonis, Chainalysis, HealthEdge, Hotel Engine, Snowflake, Weee! and Wiz, the investments were funded by different Blackstone vehicles outside of BXG whose overall strategy and terms may vary significantly from any BXG vehicle.
NEWS & INSIGHTS
Behind the Build: SPANX
Cricket Whitton, CEO of SPANX, shares with Blackstone’s Ann Chung what’s next for the category-creating company and what made Blackstone “the ultimate brand advocate.”
Securing Online Transactions with GeoComply
GeoComply operates at the center of a new generation of technology companies, leveraging advanced geolocation data to make better risk-based decisions and instill confidence in every online interaction. Hear from GeoComply’s CEO, Anna Sainsbury, on the company’s decision to partner with Blackstone.
Wall Street Journal Interview with Jon Korngold
Global Head of Blackstone Growth Jon Korngold spoke to WSJ Pro Private Equity about the continued digitization of the global economy, navigating rising valuations in tech, and how inflation and the ongoing pandemic may affect investors in the year ahead.