Obvious Ventures Lands is funding five projects with a 360-degree view of planetary, human and economic health

Obvious Ventures, the company co-founded by Twitter’s Evan Williams, has raised a fifth fund, and this one, just like its predecessors, comes with a “fun” number: $360,360,360.

“We invest at the frontiers of mathematics, science and physics, and we like to celebrate mathematics in our fund numbers as well,” James Joaquin (pictured far right), co-founder and managing director of the company, told TechCrunch.

The company’s first fund was $123,456,789, and its second was $191,919,191 (a rotating number that can be read the same way back and forth). The third fund was worth $271,828,182 (which mathematicians and engineers immediately know as e, or Euler’s number), while the fourth fund, announced in mid-2022, continued the tradition as another palindrome worth $355,111,553.

If you haven’t guessed it by now, the meaning of Obvious Ventures’ latest fund volume has less to do with geeky math and more to do with the company’s investment philosophy. Twelve years into its journey, Obvious says this number represents a comprehensive perspective on its three broad focus areas: planetary health, human health, and economic health.

“We like the metaphor of taking a 360-degree look at each of these areas,” Joaquin said. “You have to be a student of the past to understand what worked and what didn’t.”

What works for the firm, according to Joaquin, is keeping its fund sizes small enough that a single investment, if it becomes a permanent public company, has the opportunity to return the entire fund. Joaquin is likely focusing on durability in part because one of Obvious Ventures’ early winners, Beyond Meat, reached a market value of more than $14 billion shortly after its 2019 IPO, but fell below a billion by late 2022.

However, Joaquin says the firm has seen meaningful cash distributions to limited partners from all of its underlying funds, and boasts several companies that have made successful exits from the public market. In 2015, Obvious Ventures invested in satellite imaging company Planet Labs, which went public via SPAC in 2021 and is currently valued at about $8.5 billion. Meanwhile, its Series A investment in Recursion Pharmaceuticals maintains a market cap of more than $2 billion.

Obvious is also an early investor in HR and payroll platform Gusto, which was recently valued at more than $9 billion in the private market and is widely seen on the path to an IPO.

In a venture capital environment where only 17% of companies have successfully raised more than three funds, according to research by Sapphire Partners, Obvious Ventures’ latest fundraising solidifies the company as an established player in venture capital.

“We have successfully funded five, which is actually a big deal in the projects space,” Joaquin said.

Obvious Ventures may take a playful approach to funding sizes, but its focus on investing in startups that are making a positive impact on the world is serious. Joaquin pointed to several investments in each of the company’s three pillars.

In the planetary health sector, the company invested in Zanskar, a startup that uses proprietary data and artificial intelligence to identify and harness geothermal energy, one of the most cost-effective energy sources available. Just last week, Zanskar announced a $115 million Series C. Obvious Ventures, which led the company’s previous round, was particularly excited about this investment. Joaquin noted that Zanskar’s geothermal energy could help fuel power-hungry AI data centers.

In its human health strategy, Obvious Ventures touted its investment in Inceptive, an AI platform for molecular development. Inceptive was founded by Jakob Oszkorit, one of the lead authors of the paper “Attention is All You Need,” which introduced the Transformer architecture, the breakthrough behind generative AI.

In the area of ​​economic health, Joaquin pointed to Dexterity Robotics. The company, which was valued at $1.65 billion last year, is building humanoids to handle the “dull, dirty and dangerous” tasks currently performed by humans in warehouses and factories.

In addition to Joaquin, Obvious Ventures has four active investors, including co-founder Vishal Vasishth. (Eve Williams remains a co-founder and advisor.) The company intends to make approximately 10 investments a year, with check sizes ranging from $5 million to $12 million to Series A startups.