Kristina Kerr Bergman

Kristina Kerr Bergman is a technology operator, founder, and investor. She joined Ignition Partners as a principal in 2012 after more than a decade in software product leadership. At Ignition, she sourced deals in cloud, big data, and the Internet of Things, advised portfolio companies, and counseled companies on technology trends.

Before Ignition, Bergman worked at Microsoft in SharePoint Server and Business Intelligence product management. Ignition’s biography says she led SharePoint enterprise product-management work across Business Intelligence, Enterprise Search, and Composite Applications, later leading outbound work including partner ecosystem development for a cloud-based application-development model, worldwide sales and marketing, social media, press and analyst relations, and events such as the SharePoint Conference. Before Microsoft, she worked at Crystal Decisions, later acquired by Business Objects, in Vancouver, focused primarily on product marketing for strategic alliances.

In 2016, Bergman co-founded Integris Software, a Seattle company building data privacy automation and data risk intelligence software. Madrona described Integris as a solution for companies to discover, classify, and control how they use customer data; OneTrust acquired Integris Software on June 30, 2020 and integrated its technology into OneTrust DataDiscovery.

In November 2020, Pender Ventures announced that Bergman joined as a partner. Pender described her as a B.C. native returning to Canada from Seattle, with 20 years of technology, marketing, product, entrepreneurship, and investing experience. Public LinkedIn-indexed data now lists her profile under Swarm 42 and describes her as active as an angel investor, mentor, and startup coach; Pender’s current team page no longer lists her.

• Bergman’s investing background is strongest in enterprise software infrastructure and applied data problems: cloud, big data, security, IoT, data privacy automation, and enterprise systems.
• At Ignition, she focused on cloud and big data startups and on the broader shift toward enterprise technology driven by consumerization of IT.
• Pender Ventures’ thesis during and after her tenure emphasized “fundamental technology” B2B companies, especially data-centric solutions, health tech, and industrial digital transformations.
• Pender’s stated investment approach is to focus on “company fundamentals, not flavours-du-jour,” with emphasis on product-market fit, repeatable revenue, strong unit economics, leadership, and scalability.
• Her comments on Vancouver and the Pacific Northwest suggest she values durable local talent pools, lower employee churn, and the ability for a company to scale where it is based rather than relocating by default.
• In a founder-facing context, she has emphasized that trusted advisors who can vouch for a team, product, and work ethic matter more than polished demo-day performances.