Stage 2 Capital closes $100M fundraise to bring AI to startup GTM support
Stage 2 Capital has closed $100 million across two funds and is adding an AI agent to help portfolio founders access go-to-market expertise from its network of more than 1,000 operators. The firm says the funds will support B2B AI companies from pre-seed through Series A.
- $100 million was raised across Venture Fund IV and Catalyst IV.
- Venture Fund IV targets Seed through Series A with $2 million to $5 million checks.
- Catalyst IV invests $200,000 in pre-seed companies.
- An MCP agent connects founders with more than 1,000 GTM leaders.
- Stage 2 has begun investing in Letter.ai, Qualitate and Axle.
Two funds target early-stage B2B AI startups
Stage 2 Capital said the fundraising covers Venture Fund IV and Catalyst IV. Venture Fund IV will write checks of $2 million to $5 million from Seed through Series A, while Catalyst IV will make $200,000 investments in pre-seed companies, often as part of a startup's first institutional round.
The firm has already started investing from the new funds, backing AI companies including Letter.ai, Qualitate and Axle. Stage 2 led Letter.ai's $10.6M Series A last October, and the company raised a $40M Series B four months later, led by Battery Ventures, according to the announcement.
The fundraise follows three portfolio exits: Momentum, acquired by Salesforce, Steelhead, acquired by Mainsail, and Versori, acquired by Avalara.
An AI agent for on-demand go-to-market connections
Stage 2 is adding AI to its operations through an MCP agent. The tool gives portfolio founders access in real time to the talent, expertise and connections of more than 1,000 limited partners, or LPs, in the firm's network.
According to Stage 2, the network includes go-to-market leaders from companies such as Anthropic, OpenAI, Databricks, Lovable, SpaceX and ElevenLabs. Its members have experience across sales, marketing, customer success, revenue operations, partnerships and forward-deployed engineering.
The firm says the agent matches a portfolio company's specific problem with an operator who has recently solved a similar one. That is intended to reduce reliance on introductions that can take time, while helping founders make decisions about when to scale and how quickly.
Jay Po, Stage 2's co-founder and managing partner, said the firm was created because founders need more than capital. “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,” he said.
Stage 2 combines venture partners with GTM operators
Stage 2 invests through a pod model that pairs a venture partner with a partner who has a go-to-market background. The approach is built around the firm's “Science of Scaling” framework, developed by co-founder and managing partner Mark Roberge.
The framework is intended to help founders assess when a company is ready to scale and how fast it should grow. Roberge said founders commonly either scale too slowly and miss an opportunity or scale before they are ready, putting the business at risk. He said Stage 2 wants founders and investors to make those decisions using evidence rather than assumptions.
For users of the firm's funds, the announcement points to a model that combines capital, direct partner support and faster access to specialized operators. Stage 2 said its partners work directly with every founder they back, while the MCP agent extends that support across its wider GTM network.
