The name contains a small joke. When Joe Montana was naming his venture firm, he liked “Liquid.” Venture capital ties money up for years. The irony appealed to him. But the name was taken. So was Liquid 1. Liquid 2 was available. In Montana’s telling, one of Silicon Valley’s elaborate financial arrangements acquired its name through a process familiar to anyone who has registered a domain.
- Pre-seed and seed checks: typically $250,000-$500,000.
- A separate growth strategy starts at Series B.
- The offer includes introductions to customers, hires and future investors.
There is a more consequential choice behind the firm. Liquid 2 takes relatively small positions across a broad group of technology companies. Then it tries to make those positions useful to founders. The intriguing question is whether owning a little of many companies can make an investor more helpful to each one.
01 A seat at the table
Liquid 2 occupies the space between an individual angel and a larger venture fund assembling a substantial stake. Its FAQ calls its investments collaborative. For a founder, that means room on the capitalization table for other investors, alongside a firm offering introductions and operating advice.
The early check is usually a piece of the round. At Series B and beyond, the stated range rises to $2 million-$5 million. These are investments in businesses, with ownership and dilution negotiated through the financing. A founder choosing Liquid 2 is also choosing a financial partner whose eventual outcome depends on the company’s value.
The distinction matters for a capital-hungry business. Half a million dollars might help a team reach its next experiment; it cannot pay for every factory, launch or hiring plan. Liquid 2 fits into a financing syndicate. Founders still need to assemble the rest of the money.
02 The people behind the phone book
The firm began in 2015 with Montana, Michael Ma and Michael Miller. Each brought a different kind of credibility. Ma had co-founded TalkBin, acquired by Google in 2011, and worked on products there. Miller had co-founded Cloudant, acquired by IBM in 2014. He also had a doctorate in particle physics from Yale.
Those histories give substance to the operating advice. Selling software, building a technical product and selling a company produce different lessons. Montana brought an investing career developed after football, including mentorship from Ron Conway. Conway, Jessica Livingston and Paul Graham appear on Liquid 2’s advisor roster.
There is an internal operating choice, too. Speaking to ACQ2 in 2024, Montana said the partnership moved to equal pay and carried interest from Fund III. That describes how partners shared the economics at that time. It makes an interesting companion to the firm’s outward promise of teamwork: cooperation had a place in the compensation structure.
In an earlier conversation published by portfolio company Unit21, Montana emphasized mutual respect and recovering from mistakes. His point was operational: dwelling on a dropped pass does little to improve the next play. For a young company, the useful question is what teammates can change together. That is a demanding standard for an investor, too. Being available when a founder has unwelcome news matters more than offering encouragement when everything is going well.
03 The portfolio becomes a market
Look at the businesses Liquid 2 lists: Mercury, GitLab, Rippling, Anduril, Solugen, Stoke Space. Banking technology sits beside developer software, defense, chemical manufacturing and rockets. The portfolio page reports more than 800 companies. Generalist investing, here, has a very literal meaning.
That breadth creates opportunities for introductions. In the firm’s published testimonials, Mercury founder Immad Akhund describes promotion to relevant portfolio companies. TollBit co-founder Olivia Joslin describes help structuring a round and introductions that brought other investors aboard. These are founders’ accounts of particular relationships. They show the kinds of work behind the network claim.
“Our checks don’t fill up an entire round.”Mike Miller · Mercury interview, 2021
In that interview, Ma explained that founders helped pull Liquid 2 into international investing. Miller described increasing interest in hard technology as a response to what founders were building. Their explanation makes the strategy sound less like a map drawn once and followed forever, more like a set of relationships that keeps revealing another road.
By March 2026, Liquid 2 was also named among existing investors participating in AI security company depthfirst’s $80 million Series B. Meritech led that round. The amount belonged to the entire financing; it was not Liquid 2’s check. The participation gives a concrete example of the firm appearing beyond its earliest investment stage.
04 A number is not a return
Liquid 2 announced an $80 million third core fund in February 2022, saying it had closed the previous December above a $75 million target. That money was capital for investing. It was neither revenue earned by the management company nor a valuation of the firm.
Likewise, the homepage’s current claims of 40-plus seeded unicorns and more than $250 billion in enterprise value describe portfolio companies. They do not tell a limited partner how much cash has come back. This distinction is particularly useful when looking at a firm whose name jokes about liquidity. A valuable holding and a realized return arrive on different schedules.
05 Make the request easy to answer
Montana’s advice to founders is unusually copyable. In the ACQ2 conversation, he suggested putting an ask section in monthly updates. His team could then pick the requests it knew how to pursue. Anyone managing outside supporters can use that habit: identify the problem, name the help, make the next action clear.
01 / Customer Which buyer do you need to meet?
02 / Hiring Which role is blocking progress?
03 / Capital Which investor fits the next round?
The practical limit is relevance. An introduction helps when the person on the other end needs the product, understands the role or fits the financing. A broad address book cannot manufacture demand. Liquid 2’s proposition rests on turning relationships into those specific matches. The founder’s job is to make the request before the problem has become an emergency.