obvious-ventures
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Breezeworks
Breezeworks is a San Francisco-based software company that builds mobile-first business management tools for independent service professionals - plumbers, electricians, HVAC techs, cleaners, landscapers and other on-the-go contractors. Its app bundles scheduling, dispatching, customer management, automated reminders, GPS team tracking, custom invoicing and integrated payments (via Square and Breezeworks Payments, with QuickBooks sync) so a solo operator or small crew can run the entire back office from a smartphone. Founded in 2012 and backed by Obvious Ventures and a roster of notable tech investors, Breezeworks aims to keep small service businesses independent and efficient.
Baton
Baton is a New York-based online marketplace that helps owners sell their small businesses and helps buyers acquire them. It replaces the slow, opaque world of traditional business brokers with fast data-driven valuations, confidential listings, digital data rooms, and guided M&A support - achieving a roughly 70% close rate at about half the cost of conventional brokers.
Chat Joglekar
Chat Joglekar is the co-founder and CEO of Baton, a New York marketplace that wants to be the Zillow for small businesses - giving Main Street owners fast, data-backed valuations and a private way to sell. Before Baton he spent two decades building $100M+ businesses inside Zillow, Spotify and Google. In January 2025 Baton raised a $10M Series A led by Obvious Ventures, with backing from Zillow co-founder Spencer Rascoff, pushing total funding past $15.5M as the company chases a roughly $10 trillion wave of retiring-boomer business transitions.
Ev Williams
Ev Williams is the Nebraska farm boy who accidentally invented blogging, co-founded Twitter, built Medium, and is now trying to make social media actually social again with Mozi. A serial founder who has shaped how the world communicates - and who openly regrets some of what that meant - he remains one of tech's most quietly consequential figures, running Obvious Ventures, a B Corp impact fund with $585M in assets, while incubating his next idea from San Francisco.