Stage 2 Capital Closes $100M and Puts AI-Powered Go-to-Market at the Center of Early-Stage Venture

Stage 2 Capital is bringing AI-powered access to its network of 1,000+ GTM leaders at companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, and ElevenLabs, helping founders find the right expertise and connections at the point of need.

BOSTON, Nov. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Stage 2 Capital today announced the close of $100 million across Venture Fund IV and Catalyst IV. Stage 2's partners work directly with every founder they back. Now the firm is adding AI to its operations via its MCP agent, allowing portfolio founders to access the talent, expertise, and connections of more than 1,000 LPs in real-time. The announcement follows four recent portfolio exits: Momentum (acquired by Salesforce), Steelhead (acquired by Mainsail), Versori (acquired by Avalara), and Order.co (majority investment by PSG).

Together, the two funds enable Stage 2 Capital to invest in B2B AI companies from the earliest stages. Venture Fund IV writes checks of $2 million to $5 million from Seed through Series A, while Catalyst IV makes $200,000 investments in pre-seed companies, often as part of the first institutional round. Both funds provide founders with access to experienced go-to-market (GTM) operators who help build the foundation for scalable growth.

"We started Stage 2 Capital because early-stage founders need more than capital. They need investors who can help them navigate their operational challenges. No firm solved this well for go-to-market," said Jay Po, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Stage 2 Capital. "That's been true since day one, and these latest funds demonstrate the success of the model. We'll always be in the room with our founders. Now, with AI, we can more easily surface the collective expertise, experience, and connections across our LP network, connecting founders with the right people and insights at the moment they need them"

AI-driven access to 1,000 operators: The Right Expertise, On Demand

For almost any go-to-market problem a founder faces, someone has already solved it, and many of those operators are part of Stage 2's network. What founders rarely get from VC is a way to reach the right operator at the right moment. Early-stage companies often have to move fast, and waiting for an introduction could mean missing a critical window.

Stage 2's MCP agent is built to close that gap. It combines the Science of Scaling with the knowledge from its 1,000+ GTM leaders, matching the specific portfolio company's need with the world's modern expert. When founders need help, it connects them quickly with operators who have recently solved the same problem. The MCP agent enables Stage 2's partners to double down on their support of portfolio companies on go-to-market strategy, helping founders answer the key questions of when to scale and how fast.

The Stage 2 Model: Operators, Network, and the Science of Scaling
Stage 2 invests through a pod model. They pair a partner from venture with a partner who comes from a GTM background. Behind them is an LP network of more than 1,000 go-to-market leaders from Anthropic, OpenAI, Databricks, Lovable, SpaceX, ElevenLabs and more. Founders draw on their wide range of backgrounds, spanning across sales, marketing, customer success, revops, partnerships, and forward-deployed engineering.

The firm's approach is grounded in The Science of Scaling, a framework developed by Co-Founder and Managing Partner Mark Roberge that helps founders determine when—and how quickly—to scale, so they can seize the opportunity without risking premature failure.

"We see founders make the same two mistakes over and over. Some scale too slowly and miss their window. Others scale before they're ready and put the entire business at risk," said Mark Roberge. "We have well-established ways to measure revenue, but very little discipline around deciding when a company is actually ready to scale or how fast it should grow. Too often, boards rely on a playbook that worked for another company ten years ago, without considering whether it makes sense for the business in front of them. We want to help founders and investors make those decisions based on evidence rather than assumptions." 

"Stage 2 was with us from our Series A on, as an extension of our team," said Ashley Wilson, Co-Founder of Momentum (acquired by Salesforce). "They helped us pressure-test when we truly had product-market fit and how fast to scale from there. And every GTM problem we hit after that, they found the person who had already solved that exact problem at our stage. They introduced us to customers we couldn't have reached on our own, and connected us with experienced operators who changed our trajectory."

Stage 2 has already begun investing from the new funds, backing AI companies like Letter.ai, Qualitate, and Axle. Stage 2 led Letter,ai's $10.6M Series A last October, and four months later the company raised a $40M Series B led by Battery Ventures.

About Stage 2 Capital
Stage 2 Capital is the first VC fund that combines decades of investment experience and decades of go-to-market executive experience at the partner level, supported by more than 1,000 GTM operators from companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, Lovable, Snowflake, Databricks, SpaceX, Harvey, ServiceNow, and dozens of other category leaders. The firm invests pre-seed through Series A in B2B AI startups with a unique specialization in helping them drive sustainable revenue growth. Learn more at Stage2.Capital.

SOURCE Stage 2 Capital