Christopher Shutts

Chris Shutts is a Chicago-area software entrepreneur best known for co-founding BigMachines in 2000 alongside longtime partner Godard Abel. Based in Deerfield, Illinois, BigMachines pioneered cloud-based configure-price-quote (CPQ) software that integrated with CRM and ERP systems to automate complex B2B sales quoting. The company raised roughly $31M in venture funding and was acquired by Oracle in 2013. Shutts served as a Co-Founder and Senior Vice President at BigMachines and stayed on at Oracle afterward as Vice President of CPQ Cloud Development from 2013 until 2020.

Shutts holds BS and MS degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT (master's completed in 1995), where he was awarded a National Science Foundation graduate fellowship. Before entering software, he began his career at Case Corporation (the agricultural-equipment maker), where he was a Business Unit Manager for two global business units — early experience "building tractors" that he frequently references as the origin of his engineering-driven approach to product.

In December 2020 / early 2021, Shutts reunited with Godard Abel to co-found Logik.io (later branded Logik.ai), a next-generation, AI-powered CPQ and product-configuration platform. As CEO, he grew the company to $15M+ ARR and 150+ employees across Chicago and India, backed by investors including Emergence Capital and High Alpha. On April 3, 2025, ServiceNow announced a definitive agreement to acquire Logik.ai (the deal closed in May 2025; Crain's Chicago Business reported a valuation near $500M), to bolster ServiceNow's CRM and sales-automation footprint against Salesforce. Shutts joined ServiceNow as VP of CPQ following the acquisition. He is also a car enthusiast, active on X as @cjfordgt40.

• Invests primarily in early-stage / seed B2B and enterprise software companies, mirroring the domains he has operated in (CPQ, sales tech, SaaS marketplaces).
• Strong bias toward experienced, repeat founders — in his own words: *"Venture capitalists love founders that have done it before."*
• Places heavy weight on company culture and customer obsession: *"Culture trumps strategy. You can have the best strategy in the world, but if you don't have a good company culture, you won't win."*
• Deep Chicago / Midwest network, frequently co-investing or partnering alongside his BigMachines/Logik.io orbit (Godard Abel, Scott Dorsey, High Alpha, Emergence, Hyde Park Venture Partners, Chicago Ventures).
• Founder-operator credibility from two exits (BigMachines → Oracle; Logik.ai → ServiceNow) rather than a formal, thesis-driven fund.