Joe Montana’s VC Firm Raises $80 Million Fund

<p><span class&equals;"xn-location"><strong>SAN FRANCISCO<&sol;strong> &&num;8211&semi;<&sol;span>&&num;8211&semi; Liquid 2 Ventures says it has raised &dollar;80 million for their third core fund&comma; Liquid 2 Ventures Fund III&comma; L&period;P&period; that closed in <span class&equals;"xn-chron">December 2021<&sol;span>&comma; exceeding their &dollar;75 million target&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Liquid 2 Ventures is an early-stage venture firm founded by former San Francisco legendary QB <span class&equals;"xn-person">Joe Montana<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Michael Ma<&sol;span>&comma; and <span class&equals;"xn-person">Mike Miller<&sol;span> in 2015&period; Their first two core funds&comma; Liquid 2 Ventures&comma; L&period;P&period; &lpar;vintage 2016&comma; &&num;8220&semi;Fund I&&num;8221&semi;&rpar; and Liquid 2 Ventures Fund II&comma; L&period;P&period; &lpar;Vintage 2018&comma; &&num;8220&semi;Fund II&&num;8221&semi;&rpar; are both over 3x and include between them 25 companies valued at over <span class&equals;"xn-money">&dollar;1B<&sol;span>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&lbrack;Photo above&colon; Staff of Liquid Ventures from left to right&colon; Mike Miller&comma; Joe Montana&comma; son Nate Montana&comma; and Michael Ma&period;&rsqb;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<div class&equals;"col-sm-10 col-sm-offset-1">&NewLine;<p><b><span class&equals;"xn-person">Joe Montana<&sol;span>&comma; Founding &amp&semi; Managing Partner<br class&equals;"dnr" &sol;><&sol;b>Since Montana&&num;8217&semi;s retirement from the NFL in 1994&comma; the Hall-of-Fame quarterback has been emersed in the venture capital industry&period; In 1998&comma; he co-founded HRJ capital and helped to grow the fund of funds&&num;8217&semi; AUM to over &dollar;900MM before his 2004 departure&period; From 2005 to 2010&comma; Montana co-founded Modern Bank&comma; a commercial bank based in NYC&comma; for which he served as a board member&period; Shortly thereafter&comma; he began angel investing under the guidance of his mentor <span class&equals;"xn-person">Ron Conway<&sol;span> and a thriving portfolio ensued&period; On the heels of several profitable&comma; investments from this period including Pinterest&comma; DropBox&comma; Weave&comma; CoreOS&comma; ShipBob&comma; OpenListings &lpar;acquired by OpenDoor&rpar;&comma; Caliva and House Spirits&comma; Montana opened his own shop in 2015&period; Along with his core partners <span class&equals;"xn-person">Michael Ma<&sol;span> and Mike Miller&comma; Liquid2 Ventures was founded&period; His son&comma; Nate&comma; joined shortly thereafter and is currently a general partner&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<div class&equals;"col-sm-10 col-sm-offset-1">&NewLine;<p><b><span class&equals;"xn-person">Michael Ma<&sol;span>&comma; Founding &amp&semi; General Partner<br class&equals;"dnr" &sol;><&sol;b>Shortly after completing <span class&equals;"xn-org">Yale<&sol;span> undergrad&comma; Ma co-founded TalkBin&comma; where he served as COO and successfully took the company through the YC Winter 2011 class&period; Ma stayed on as Project Manager at Google to ensure the continued success of TalkBin&period; In 2015 he graduated from <span class&equals;"xn-org">Harvard Business School<&sol;span> and that same year became a founding partner of Liquid 2 Ventures&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><b><span class&equals;"xn-person">Mike Miller<&sol;span>&comma; Founding &amp&semi; General Partner<br class&equals;"dnr" &sol;><&sol;b>A trained particle physicist&comma; Miller thrives at long term fundamental research and introducing innovative technologies to market&period; He was an early leader in the cloud computing&comma; no-sql and big data markets&comma; helping create&comma; evangelize&comma; and ultimately bringing these technologies to both hyper-growth startups and Fortune 500 enterprises&period; Miller was co-founder and Chief Scientist at Cloudant &lpar;acquired by IBM&rpar; and a graduate of the YC Spring 08 class&period; As a founding partner at Liquid 2 Ventures&comma; Miller&&num;8217&semi;s areas of expertise include machine learning&sol;AI&comma; cloud services&comma; infrastructure&comma; enterprise software&comma; IoT&comma; science&comma; and space&period; He is also an author&sol;co-author of over one hundred scientific publications&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><b><span class&equals;"xn-person">Nate Montana<&sol;span>&comma; General Partner<br class&equals;"dnr" &sol;><&sol;b>Montana has over 9 years of experience in angel investing and is currently a General Partner at Liquid 2 Ventures&period; A graduate of the <span class&equals;"xn-org">University of Montana<&sol;span>&comma; he took a role early-on at Niche&comma; a start-up focused on connecting social media influencers with advertisers&period; Niche was acquired by Twitter&comma; where Montana continued to work until 2016 when he joined Liquid 2 Ventures as an Associate&period; He was promoted to Principal in 2017 and made General Partner in 2021&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;

Editor

Intuit Signs $100 Million Deal With OpenAI

MOUNTAIN VIEW - Intuit Inc., operator of the financial technology platform that makes Intuit TurboTax, Credit Karma, QuickBooks,…

2 days

Heavily Armed Drug Dealer Arrested Next to Sunnyvale School

The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office has charged a Sunnyvale apartment manager with possessing…

2 days

Wispr Scores $25 Million Series A Extension

SAN FRANCISCO -- Wispr, the voice-to-text AI that turns speech into clear, polished writing in every…

3 days

Numeric Dials Up $51 Million Series B

SAN FRANCISCO -- Numeric, an AI accounting automation platform, has raised a $51 million Series…

3 days

Apple Names 45 Finalists for App Store of the Year Awards

Apple has announced 45 finalists for this year’s App Store Awards, recognizing the best apps…

4 days

UC Reaches Agreement With Nurses, Strike Canceled

The University of California (UC) and the California Nurses Association (CNA) have reached a tentative…

6 days