Jurassic Capital has invested $2.9 million in Wilmington-based Performance Culture, a performance-management software company.

Performance Culture was co-founded by Melissa Phillippi and Dallas Romanowski and has 11 employees.

The investment will enable Performance Culture to grow, and having Jurassic as an investor was a strategic fit, said Phillippi, who is leading the software as a service (SaaS) company as CEO and president.

“There are a lot of brilliant jerks out there in the VC [venture capital] and private equity world, and I didn't want anything to do with them,” Phillippi said. “I wanted to make sure we could find someone that could help us scale and had the expertise to do it and were also a great cultural fit for our mission, vision and core values. We found that in Jurassic Capital.”

That mission involves helping companies build better teams for better results, Phillippi and Romanowski said.

The partners in Jurassic Capital founded Bronto Software, which they ended up selling to NetSuite for $200 million.

“To really scale [Performance Culture], we needed some outside expertise that has been there, done that,” Romanowski said.

Phillippi and Romanowski founded Performance Culture in 2015. Their angel investors were Rich Novak and Brian Smith. 

Jim Roberts, founder of Network for Entrepreneurs in Wilmington and Wilmington Angels for Local Entrepreneurs, introduced Romanowski to Jurassic Capital partner Kevin Mosley a little over a year ago, Romanowski said.

“Over the last five years, the company has become a market leader and is consistently recognized as a thought leader in the industry,” said Mosley of Performance Culture in a post on Jurassic’s website.

He added, “We invested in Performance Culture because we are impressed by the team and culture developed by Dallas and Melissa, as they have grown the business consistently and profitably over many years. 

“We are also excited because the importance of performance management today has never been higher, given the need to engage employees and foster cultures in ever-changing environments. Our focus at Jurassic is to invest in regional B2B software companies to help them scale to the next level by leveraging our operational experience. Performance Culture fits that thesis perfectly.”

Joe Colopy is another Jurassic partner.

"Performance Culture is a great investment because of its people. Melissa Phillippi and her team are driven, honest and committed to their customers and to each other," Colopy said Tuesday. "That's a winning formula for every company that I have ever been a part of, and we're excited to partner with them for the next leg of their journey."