Obvious Ventures

aid: obvious-ventures
name: Obvious Ventures
description: >-
  Obvious Ventures is a San Francisco-based early-stage venture capital firm
  founded in 2014 by Ev Williams, James Joaquin, and Vishal Vasishth, investing
  in entrepreneurs building "world positive" companies that solve humanity's
  biggest problems through technology. The firm invests across three thesis
  pillars: planetary health (sustainable energy, food, mobility, climate), human
  health and longevity (healthcare, biotech, wellness), and economic health
  (fintech, the future of work, robotics, and inclusive systems). Obvious writes
  approximately 10 new checks per year, typically $5M to $12M into seed and
  Series A rounds, deliberately keeping fund sizes small enough that a single
  durable public company can return an entire fund. It closed its fifth fund at
  $360,360,360 in early 2026 and has backed 90+ companies since inception,
  including Beyond Meat, Planet, Gusto, Recursion, Devoted Health, Diamond
  Foundry, and Proterra. Obvious is a Certified B Corporation headquartered at
  190 Pacific Avenue, San Francisco, CA.
x-type: venture-capital
x-category: Venture Capital
deliveryModel:
  model: unknown
  open_source: false
  commercial: false
  callable_host: false
  label: Delivery model not determined — needs a product licence on record
  confidence: low
  source:
  - none
  generated: '2026-08-28'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: unknown
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Unknown
  confidence: low
  source: []
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
image: https://obvious.com/favicon.ico
tags:
  - Venture Capital
  - Seed
  - Series A
  - Sustainability
  - Health
  - Fintech
  - Climate
  - Impact
  - North America
created: '2026-07-17'
modified: '2026-07-17'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
apis: []
common:
  - type: Website
    url: https://obvious.com/
  - type: Portfolio
    url: https://obvious.com/portfolio/
  - type: Portfolio
    url: portfolio/obvious-ventures-portfolio.yml
  - type: Team
    url: https://obvious.com/team/
  - type: Team
    url: team/obvious-ventures-team.yml
  - type: InvestmentThesis
    url: https://obvious.com/about/
  - type: Blog
    url: https://obvious.com/ideas/
  - type: News
    url: https://obvious.com/press/
  - type: LinkedIn
    url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/obvious-ventures/
  - type: Twitter
    url: https://x.com/obviousvc
  - type: Crunchbase
    url: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/obvious-ventures
  - type: Features
    data:
      - 'Stage: Seed, Series A (early-stage)'
      - 'Typical check: $5M-$12M'
      - 'Sectors: planetary health, human health & longevity, economic health'
      - 'Geography: primarily North America'
      - 'Fund V: $360,360,360 (2026)'
      - 'Pace: ~10 new investments per year'
      - 'Founded: 2014'
      - 'HQ: 190 Pacific Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94111'
      - 'B Corp: Certified'
    sources:
      - https://obvious.com/
      - https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/26/obvious-ventures-lands-fund-five-with-a-360-degree-view-of-planetary-human-economic-health/
    updated: '2026-07-17'
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: info@apievangelist.com
    url: https://apievangelist.com
  - FN: APIs.json
    url: http://apisjson.org
  - FN: Obvious Ventures
    url: https://obvious.com