The Journey from NFL Hall of Famer to VC Unicorn Breeder

Biography

Widely considered the best NFL quarterback of all time, Joe Montana personifies performance excellence and personal integrity both on and off the field. Yet the word most closely associated with him is not winner — it's leader. He led the 49ers to four Super Bowl wins with unflappable poise and will forever be known as one of the toughest quarterbacks of all time.

Since his retirement in 1994, Joe has been active and successful in the Venture Capital world. In 1998 he co-founded the fund of funds HRJ Capital, where he was an acting partner until 2004. At his departure, HRJ Capital was managing over $900M and investing across venture funds, leverage buyouts, hedge funds and real estate. In 2005, Joe co-founded Modern Bank, a commercial bank based in New York City which specializes in commercial loans and remains active today. He served as a board member from 2005 until 2010 when he began angel investing under the mentorship of Ron Conway. A handful of his investments include Pinterest, Dropbox, Weave, CoreOS, ShipBob, Open Listings (acquired by Opendoor), and Caliva. During this time, he also became an early investor in House Spirits, which recently sold off their Aviation Gin (later made famous by Ryan Reynolds) to Diageo.

In 2015, Joe turned his passion for investing into Liquid 2 Ventures, LLC and brought together the core partners - Michael Ma and Mike Miller - that still remain today. His son Nate joined shortly thereafter and is currently a General Partner as well. Liquid 2 Ventures has successfully raised three core funds and an opportunity fund. The latest, Fund III, closed at the end of 2021 with an oversubscribed $80MM.