Liquid 2 Ventures

Early-stage VC; HQ San Francisco; founded 2015 by Joe Montana (NFL Hall of Famer), Mike Miller, and Michael Ma. Fund I ~$25M(multi-fund;FundIproduced21unicornsincludinga420xreturnonGitLabseed).Checksizes:$250K–$500Kearly-stage;$2M–$5M Series B+.

Portfolio scale (Tracxn, Feb 2026): 375 companies, 31 unicorns, 2 IPOs, 44 acquisitions. Notable portfolio: GitLab, Mercury, FanDuel, Rippling, Crowd Cow, Rappi.

Managing Partner

Joe Montana — Managing Partner. Also active personal angel.

Note: Earlier wiki references to “LIQUID 2 is Iddo Tilles + Michael Ovitz fund” were incorrect. Liquid 2 was founded by Montana, Miller, Ma. Michael Ovitz is an unrelated solo angel investor (chairman of Treville Capital Group); Iddo Tilles is unrelated.

Treeline Relevance

• Participated in Treeline’s $25M Series A (Mar 31, 2026).
• Specific Treeline deal partner not publicly disclosed ^[ambiguous].

Related

• treeline
• Nate Montana (GP — Joe’s son; our inbound contact)

Fundraise intel (2026-05-25)

Relationship classification for the raise: fundraise-firm-conflicted. (Frontmatter above stays competitor-investor per append rules; this block is the fundraise-lens overlay.) Liquid 2 is on competitor Treeline’s cap table AND is structurally a small-check, non-lead fund — so it is a conflicted, low-leverage lane for init.inc, not a clean capital source.

Firm Profile (reconciled + updated)

• Founded: 2015, San Francisco. Founders: Joe Montana (NFL HoF; Managing Partner), Michael Ma (TalkBin → Google; founder of CreatorDAO), Mike Miller (Cloudant → IBM; PhD particle physics). (Consistent with the page above.)
• Partnership — ⚠️ EXPANDED vs the page above (which listed only the 3 founders + “Joe = Managing Partner”): the working partnership also includes Joe’s two sons —
  • Nate (Nathaniel) Montana — GP (LinkedIn says “Partner”); inaugural team member 2016; the firm’s founder-facing operator-partner; init.inc’s inbound contact.
  • Nick (Nicholas) Montana — Partner (joined Oct 2022 from Coatue / Eclipse Ventures). (Different person from Nate — do not conflate.)
  • Matthew “Matt” Mulvey — Partner (ex-Coatue/Eclipse; ran the Paraform deal).
  • Elizabeth Montana-Luciano — Head of Operations (certified sommelier). Shawn Larrabee — Head of Finance.
• Thesis: generalist pre-seed/seed software/AI/fintech/healthtech/crypto. Edge = network depth (Joe Montana’s rolodex + 800+ portfolio-company ecosystem + SV Angel/YC ties), not deep technical diligence. “Most valuable ecosystem at seed.”
• Funds & check sizes — ⚠️ UPDATED (page above only had the 2015 Fund I ~$25M):
  • Fund I ~$25M (2015) — produced 21 unicorns incl. the ~420x GitLab seed.
  • Fund II ~$37.7M (2019, per SEC Form D). ^[single-source: SEC/EDGAR via Sparkco]
  • Fund III ~$100M\ast \ast —\ast \ast$100M target, third fund, SEC filing, announced ~Jan 27 2025 (PitchBook + biztoc; ≥2 src). Current early-stage vehicle.
  • AUM ≈ $155M (F4, May 2026). ^[single-source]
  • Structure: two vehicles — an early-stage fund (pre-seed/seed, median check $250K–$500K) and a growth fund (starts Series B, $2M–$5M). They do not typically do Series A except follow-on for existing winners.
• Lead tendency — ⚠️ verified NON-LEAD (and one conflicting source): firm’s own founder testimonials brand it “the most hands-on and helpful NON-lead investor”; F4 = “Follows”; Sparkco = lead rate <15%, “co-invest; occasional co-lead”; multiple trackers = “virtually all 2024–2026 investments in participant roles.” ⚠️ Outlier: Eagle Rock CFO claims “typically leads or co-leads” — this contradicts the firm’s own marketing + 3 other sources and is treated as wrong. Determination: non-lead / participant.
• Velocity & speed: ~40–46 new investments/yr (Tracxn: 40 trailing-12mo Feb ‘26; 46 in 2025). Decision timeline ~2 weeks. High-velocity, syndication-heavy “institutional angel.”

Partners (init.inc-relevant — pages exist / linkable)

• Nate Montana — GP, our contact. Operator background (Niche creator-marketing → Twitter PM); GTM/creator/consumer/early-B2B-SaaS lean. Cold-outbounded Sazzad; one meeting (5/20); slow follow-through.
• Other partners (Joe Montana, Michael Ma, Mike Miller, Nick Montana, Matt Mulvey) — not separately targeted this pass; plain-text only.

Recent seed activity (Pass-1 sketch — ≤5 deals; exhaustive pull is Pass 2)

All recent deals are participant roles (the signal is the non-lead pattern):

• Axiomatic AI — $18M seed, Mar ‘26 (Engine Ventures led; KP, Big Sur, Liquid 2 participated). Physics-grounded AI for hardware/engineering verification. ✅
• Conntour — $7M seed, Mar ‘26 (General Catalyst led; YC, SV Angel, Liquid 2 participated). AI NL-search over surveillance video; YC; closed in 72 hrs. ✅
• Onton — $7.5M seed, Nov ‘25 (Footwork led; Liquid 2, Parable, 43 participated). Neurosymbolic AI shopping/discovery. ✅
• Catena — ~$5M seed, ~Sep ‘25 (Liquid 2 participated; lead unconfirmed). ❓ single-source — verify Pass 2.
• Paraform — $5.2M seed (Felicis led; a16z, YC, Liquid 2 + angels). Recruiting marketplace; Matt Mulvey = the L2 partner (partner-attribution data point). Slightly pre-window. ⚠️
• Full data + verification → /Users/sazzad14/seed-market-scan/firms/liquid-2-ventures.csv.

Best data channels for this firm

• Firm site (liquid2.vc/team + landing) = best for partnership roster, the explicit non-lead positioning (founder testimonials), and the two-fund/check-size structure (straight from their FAQ). F4 (f4.fund/firms/liquid-2) = best single tracker (AUM $155M, “Follows,” ~2-wk timeline, current team).
• Fund sizing: SEC EDGAR Form D (search “Liquid 2 Ventures Fund II/III”) + PitchBook newsletter (Fund III $100M). Sparkco/Eagle Rock aggregate but Eagle Rock is unreliable on lead tendency (see ⚠️ above) — cross-check it.
• Deal data: standard press (TechCrunch / BusinessWire / GlobeNewswire / CTech for Israeli deals) is reliable for amount/lead/date; partner-per-deal is rarely stated — Liquid 2 is usually credited as the firm, occasionally a named partner appears in founder LinkedIn announcements (e.g. Matt Mulvey on Paraform, Nate+Michael Ma+Joe on Key). Joe Montana’s name dominates SEO — filter for the actual partner.

Fundraise Relationship (init.inc)

• Relationship facts:
  • ⚠️ Conflicted lane. Liquid 2 participated in Treeline’s $25M Series A (Mar 31 2026) — Treeline is a direct Init Intelligence AI-ITSM competitor. The firm already has agent-first-ITSM exposure.
  • Low leverage even if clean: non-lead, $250K–$500K early checks → cannot anchor init.inc’s round. Value would be Joe Montana halo + network intros, not capital.
• Conversation log (newest first):
  • 2026-05-24 (status): Nate said he’d send a follow-up time — hasn’t. No concrete next step. Slow / soft-pass-leaning signal.
  • 2026-05-20, 9:30–10:00am, Google Meet: First Sazzad↔Nate call. Fine, no strong momentum. Nate to propose next time (didn’t).
  • ~pre-5/20: Nate cold-outbounded Sazzad on LinkedIn (inbound from Liquid 2’s side).
• Mutual connections / warm path: none (cold inbound). Firm’s network = Ron Conway / SV Angel / YC orbit.
• Personal & rapport notes: Nate has a GTM operator background + his own unicorn track record; the firm resists the “sports fund” label and the “Joe’s son” framing.
• Live stage: tracked in the CRM (Google Sheet).

Cross-check vs existing wiki

• The page above’s competitor-investor flag + Treeline participation are reaffirmed and elevated — they now directly govern the Nate relationship (a competitor-cap-table firm cold-pitching us).
• The “Note” above correcting an earlier “LIQUID 2 = Iddo Tilles + Michael Ovitz” error stands — no contradiction; this research independently confirms founders = Montana / Ma / Miller, with the Montana sons (Nate + Nick) added as partners.
• Net-new vs the page above: the Montana-sons partnership, Fund III ($100M,2025)\ast \ast ,\ast \ast AUM$155M, the two-fund / $250K–$500K early-check structure, and the verified non-lead positioning. Only ⚠️ flags: Nate’s GP-vs-”Partner” title variance; the Eagle Rock “leads rounds” outlier (rejected).

Pass 2 deal pattern (2026-05-25)

Verified ~18–24mo seed/pre-seed pull (Nov 2024 → May 2026). Full source-tagged data: /Users/sazzad14/seed-market-scan/firms/liquid-2-ventures.csv (13 rows). Net-new vs Pass-1: +7 confirmed seeds (Multifactor, Breezy, Manufact, SalesPatriot, Vallor, David AI, Confident AI); Catena upgraded ❓→✅; Onton stage corrected (aggregators mislabel it “Series A” — primary press confirms SEED). Pass-1’s 5 rows all re-verified.

• Lead rate: ~0% / pure non-lead. Every single in-window deal is a participant role behind a named lead (Engine Ventures, General Catalyst, Footwork, Floating Point, Nexus, Ribbit, Peak XV, CRV, Dynamo+Bloomberg Beta, First Round, YC-syndicate). This strongly reaffirms the page-above’s verified non-lead positioning. The Eagle Rock “typically leads or co-leads” claim is again contradicted by 11 fresh data points — treat as wrong.
• Check/stage: small participant checks ($250K–$500K median per firm FAQ) into seed rounds; round sizes span $2.2M\to$18M (median round ≈ $6–7M). Stage mix: 10 seed + 1 pre-seed (Breezy) + 1 pre-window seed (Paraform). They skip Series A; growth fund starts Series B (out of scope here).
• Cadence: high-velocity — ~40 new investments/trailing-12mo (Tracxn/F4); my window captured 11+ in-window seeds with L2 in the syndicate. Many close fast (Conntour 72h, Confident AI 5 days, Multifactor fast) — consistent with the ~2-week decision timeline.
• Sector mix: heavily AI-native — AI agents/infra (Multifactor, Manufact/MCP, A1Base-class), AI procurement (Vallor, SalesPatriot), AI eval (Confident AI), audio-AI data (David AI), AI search/discovery (Onton, Conntour), physics-AI (Axiomatic). Plus fintech/proptech (Breezy), freight-data (Catena). Generalist with a strong YC pipeline tilt (most are YC companies — SV Angel / Ron Conway / YC orbit is the sourcing engine).
• Partner attribution: rarely stated per-deal. Best data point this pass: Confident AI — founder’s LinkedIn thanks Nate (Nathaniel) Montana + Michael Ma + Matt Mulvey by name, i.e. multiple L2 partners co-source a single YC-batch deal. (Matt Mulvey also = the Paraform partner.) Joe Montana’s name dominates SEO and causes mis-attribution — ⚠️ one source even called L2 “founded by Joe Lonsdale” (WRONG; that’s 8VC). Filter for the actual partner.
• Best data channel: standard funding press (BusinessWire/GlobeNewswire/PRNewswire/FinSMES/TechCrunch/Tech.eu) is reliable for amount/lead/date and routinely lists “Liquid 2” in the participant string. F4 (f4.fund/firms/liquid-2) + Goldilocks (goldi.ai) are the best aggregator spines for a candidate list — but ⚠️ both mislabel stages (Onton “Series A”) and round-currency (SalesPatriot “$4.2M"=theEURfigure;USDis$5M). Always re-verify the labeled stage/amount against the primary announcement. Partner-per-deal only appears in founder LinkedIn posts.