Obvious Ventures closes an irrationally sized third fund

Obvious Ventures, the firm co-founded by Medium CEO and Twitter co-founder Ev Williams, announced today that it has closed its third fund, “OV3,” at $271,828,182, a number that the graphing calculator-owning among us may recognize as e or Euler’s number.

When asked whether the firm had to return any LP money just so it could land at its magic number, Obvious’s Gabe Kleinman threw a “no comment” my way.

The firm has a bit of a tradition in being cutesy with its fund sizes. Their first fund was $123,456,789 and the second fund clocked in at $191,919,191. The focus on the naming scheme isn’t an accident; there isn’t too much to draw attention to with this fund in terms of changes to Obvious’s investment strategies, Kleinman tells TechCrunch.

“We’re investing in companies that are reimagining trillion-dollar categories,” Kleinman tells TechCrunch. “… and these play out across our three themes, which are sustainable systems, healthy living and ‘people power.’ ”

Obvious saw some successful exits in 2019, including the public offering of Beyond Meat.