James Joaquin
Co-Founder and Managing Director @ Obvious Ventures
San Francisco, United States
James Joaquin is a Series A investor at Obvious Ventures in San Francisco focused on Software and Internet. James has over twenty-five years of experience building and leading technology companies from early stage company ideation to global market leadership. He helped create entirely new categories such as online photography, web-based calendaring and the Personal Digital Assistant. James is the former CEO of Ofoto, Xoom, and Xmarks.James is theco-founder of Obvious Ventures, investing in #worldpositive startups that combine profit and purpose.
- Total investments:
- 31
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 26%
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries James Joaquin invests in
Stages James Joaquin invests in
Countries James Joaquin invests in
Round sizes
Round size
- Seed
- $500k–$8.5M
- Series A
- $4M–$31M
Investment Focus
Industry
- Software 6 (19%)
- Internet 4 (13%)
- Health Care 4 (13%)
- Mobile 3 (10%)
- Wellness 3 (10%)
Stage
- Series A 12 (39%)
- Seed 11 (35%)
- Angel 2 (6%)
- Pre-Seed 1 (3%)
- Series C 1 (3%)
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Hostie is an AI-first customer experience platform designed for restaurants, automating guest inquiries, reservations, and takeout orders. We proudly partner with some of the world’s top restaurants, including Flour + Water, Nisei, Slanted Door, ILIS, and more. Co-founded by a product designer-turned-restaurateur and an AI engineer, Hostie blendshospitality expertise with cutting-edge technology to enhance restaurant operations. | $12M / Series A / Jul 08, 2026 | |
|
|
Obello is a design platform built for brands that need to create high-quality content at speed. | $8.5M / Seed / Nov 13, 2025 | |
|
|
This Saves Lives make delicious, non-GMO, gluten-free snack bars. | $4M / Venture - Series Unknown / Jun 03, 2025 | |
|
|
The team at Baton is building a marketplace to enable SMB acquisitions with tools to help business owners unlock liquidity and let buyers access this gigantic, fragmented asset class. They are angling to be the Zillow of SMB acquisitions. | $10M / Series A / Jan 21, 2025 | |
|
|
Ampathy is a proprietary technology company that turns users into philanthropists. The company also productizes content for social impact. It has developed the first consumer-facing giving platform that turns corporate ad dollars into philanthropic dollars. Ampathy was founded in 2015 and is based in New York, New York, United States. | Pre-Seed / Jul 01, 2023 | |
|
|
Nectar builds a comprehensive, vertically integrated allergy healthcare platform leveraging data and clinical research. The company was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in New York. | $16.5M / Series A / Dec 20, 2022 | |
|
|
Psychedelic Medicines | $60M / Series A / Jun 01, 2022 | |
|
|
Parallel Learning provides a digital platform that delivers psycho-educational services and special-education support to students with learning and thinking differences. The company specializes in virtual neurodevelopmental assessments and support services for conditions such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and executive dysfunction. Parallelenables students to get to the root of the problem and provides them the resources and encouragement to succeed in the classroom by helping them build confidence, strength, and strategies to work around weaknesses.It offers a range of services, including psychological and neurodevelopmental evaluations, speech-language therapy, behavioral and mental-health counseling, specialized instruction in reading, writing, and math, and executive-function coaching. Through a nationwide network of licensed psychologists, special-education teachers, and therapists, Parallel Learning matches each student with appropriate providers and tailors support plans based on individual needs. | $20M / Series A / May 24, 2022 | |
|
|
NUE Life aims to improve mental wellness by enhancing brain function, performance, and longevity through evidence-based and scientifically proven mental health treatments and products. NUE Life has created a therapeutic ecosystem of ketamine therapy, an interactive companion app, and virtual aftercare programs to help people heal. | $23M / Series A / Apr 19, 2022 | |
|
|
Nectar builds a comprehensive, vertically integrated allergy healthcare platform leveraging data and clinical research. The company was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in New York. | $8M / Seed / Mar 17, 2022 | |
| See all 31 investments → | |||
Co-Investors
About Obvious Ventures
Obvious Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in the early and growth stages. The firm was founded in 2014 and is based in San Francisco, California.
Obvious Ventures Contacts
| Name | Phone | Socials | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
André Heinz
Venture Partner
|
|||
|
James Joaquin
Co-Founder and Managing Director
|
|||
|
Andrew Beebe
Managing Director
|
|||
|
Chris Cheng
Senior Associate
|
|||
|
Di-Ann Eisnor
Venture Partner
|
Access 48,091 investors
822 industries, 177 countries. Updated daily. Emails and phones included.
Browse database — It's Free!Find investors for your startup
Search 48,091 investors by industry and country. Emails and phones included.
Similar Investors
Similar industry
Similar stage
Featured in Investor Lists
Recommended lists
FAQ
What does James Joaquin invest in?
James Joaquin invests primarily in Software, Internet and Health Care startups, most often at Series A and Seed stage. Most of the 31 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
What is James Joaquin's check size?
James Joaquin typically joins rounds of $500k–$8.5M at Seed and $4M–$31M at Series A. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds James Joaquin participates in.
When did James Joaquin last invest?
The most recent investment recorded for James Joaquin closed in Jul 2026. Shizune tracks 31 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.
Is Shizune's investor data accurate?
Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.
Contact your first 100 investors today
Find who invests in your industry, stage, and country. Download investor list with emails in 5 minutes.
Find investors — It's Free!