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Twitter co-founder Evan Williams speaks during the Web Summit 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal, on Nov. 8, 2018.

Pedro Fiúza | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Obvious Ventures, the venture capital firm co-founded by Twitter’s Evan Williams, has filed to raise $400 million for its latest fund, according to a regulatory filing.

The filing for Obvious Ventures V was made public with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday and indicates that it is an initial notice. The firm raised its most recent fund in 2022, when it brought in about $355 million, according to PitchBook data, short of its $400 million target.

A spokesperson for the firm declined to comment.

Launched in 2014, Obvious Ventures is widely known for its early investment in alternative meat startup Beyond Meat, holding a 9% stake at the time of the company’s initial public offering in 2019. It has been a tough run on the market for Beyond Meat, whose market cap is now below $300 million after peaking at more than $14 billion in the months that followed its market debut.

The venture market broadly has struggled in recent years, with tech IPOs largely drying up in 2022 and staying relatively dormant aside from a few notable deals each year. In the third quarter of 2024, exit value hit a five-quarter low, with “only two exits — both acquisitions — exceeding the billion-dollar threshold,” according to an October report from PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association.

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Obvious Ventures says it aims to “support entrepreneurs building disruptive solutions to humanity’s biggest challenges,” with a focus on what it calls planetary health, human health and economic health. Well-known investments include supplements company Olly, lab-grown diamond maker Diamond Foundry and electric bus maker Proterra.

In its early years, Obvious Ventures had fun with numbers in its fundraising. For its first fund in 2015, the firm raised $123,456,789. Its second fund two years later raised the numeric palindrome, $191,919,191.

James Joaquin, who co-founded Obvious with Williams in 2014, said at the time of the second fund that the symbolism of the number was that you could look back at the first fund’s investments for an indication of what the firm would do in the future.

Joaquin, one of the firm’s managing directors, was previously CEO of Xoom, a payments service acquired by PayPal, and Ofoto, which was purchased by Kodak.

Williams, who helped create Twitter and was CEO of the company from 2008 to 2010, is still named as a co-founder of Obvious, but he isn’t a managing director. Williams wrote in a post on his publishing site Medium in 2017 that he was selling up to 30% of his Twitter holdings to finance other projects, including Obvious.

Late last year, Williams launched the app Mozi, which describes itself as a “private social network for seeing your people more” in real life.

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Teladoc shares tumble on wider-than-expected loss, disappointing revenue guidance

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Teladoc shares tumble on wider-than-expected loss, disappointing revenue guidance

Teladoc Health Inc. signage on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Dec. 31, 2024.

Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Teladoc Health shares fell in extended trading on Wednesday after the company reported a wider loss than analysts expected and issued disappointing quarterly guidance.

Here’s how the company did, compared to analysts’ consensus estimates from LSEG:

  • Loss per share: 28 cents vs. 24 cents expected
  • Revenue: $640.5 million vs. $639.6 million expected

Revenue at the telehealth company decreased 3% in the fourth quarter from $660.5 million during the same period last year, according to a release. Teladoc’s net loss widened to $48.4 million, or 28 cents per share, from a loss of $28.9 million, or 17 cents per share, a year ago.

Teladoc is in the middle of a deep slump, with its stock price dropping in each of the past four years due to hefty competition in remote health, challenges at mental health division BetterHelp and high operating costs.

When Teladoc acquired digital health company Livongo in 2020, the companies had a combined enterprise value of $37 billion. Teladoc’s market cap was around $1.9 billion as of market close on Wednesday.

“As we look forward in 2025, execution will continue to be a top priority as we advance efforts to unlock growth opportunities and position the company for long term success,” Teladoc CEO Chuck Divita said in the statement. “We will also remain focused on our cost structure, building on the significant improvements achieved in 2024 over the prior year.”  

Teladoc reported adjusted earnings of $74.8 million in its fourth quarter, a 35% decrease from a year ago. Adjusted earnings for the company’s Integrated Care segment declined 5% to $53.2 million, and BetterHelp saw adjusted earnings drop 63% to $21.7 million.

For the first quarter, Teladoc said it expects revenue of between $608 million and $629 million, while analysts were expecting $632.9 million. The company said adjusted earnings will be between $47 million and $59 million for the period.

Earlier this month, Teladoc announced it will acquire preventative care company Catapult Health in an all-cash deal for $65 million. Teladoc said its outlook includes the anticipated contribution from the deal but not the effect of potential impairments or purchase accounting. Teladoc said the acquisition should close at the end of the month.

Teladoc will host its quarterly call with investors at 4:30 p.m. ET.

— CNBC’s Bertha Coombs contributed to this report.

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Salesforce misses on revenue, issues disappointing guidance

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Salesforce misses on revenue, issues disappointing guidance

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff appears at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 23, 2025.

Halil Sagirkaya | Anadolu | Getty Images

Salesforce reported weaker-than-expected quarterly revenue on Wednesday and issued a forecast that fell short of analysts’ estimates. The stock price slipped 4% in extended trading.

Here’s how the company did compared with LSEG consensus:

  • Earnings per share: $2.78 adjusted vs. $2.61 expected
  • Revenue: $9.99 billion vs. $10.04 billion expected

Revenue increased 7.6% from a year ago in the quarter that ended Jan. 31, according to a statement. Net income rose to $1.71 billion, or $1.75 per share, from $1.45 billion, or $1.47 per share, a year earlier.

The top category of subscription and support revenue was service, at $2.33 billion. The figure was up about 8% and below the $2.37 billion consensus among analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha. In the sales category, Salesforce generated $2.13 billion in revenue, up 8% and also trailing Visible Alpha’s consensus of $2.17 billion.

During the quarter, the company introduced its second-generation Agentforce artificial intelligence agent technology, which answers employee questions in the Slack team communications app.

Salesforce said it has completed more than 3,000 paid deals involving Agentforce since October. Agentforce has gotten involved in 380,000 conversations through Salesforce’s help website, with humans getting involved in 2% of cases, according to the statement.

“A lot of other vendors are talking about their agent capabilities, but few are able to show that they’ve got this really running at scale,” co-founder and CEO Marc Benioff said on a conference call with analysts.

Agentforce will make a modest contribution to revenue in fiscal 2026, with a larger effect in the following year, said Amy Weaver, Salesforce’s outgoing finance chief.

Benioff referred to a forthcoming product in the area of information technology service management, where ServiceNow operates.

The U.S. Department of Government Efficiency is using Slack, Benioff said.

“We’ll work closely with the government,” he said. “We’ll do anything we can to help them succeed.”

The company called for $2.53 to $2.55 in adjusted earnings per share for the fiscal first quarter, with $9.71 billion to $9.76 billion in revenue. Analysts polled by LSEG had anticipated adjusted earnings of $2.61 per share, with $9.9 billion in revenue.

For fiscal 2026, Salesforce is targeting $11.09 to $11.17 in adjusted earnings per share on $40.5 billion to $40.9 billion in revenue, implying 7.4% growth. The LSEG consensus was for adjusted earnings per share of $11.18 on $41.35 billion in revenue.

As of Wednesday’s close, Salesforce shares are down about 8% so far in 2025, while the S&P 500 index has gained about 1%.

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Instacart suffers steepest drop on record after disappointing revenue, lackluster forecast

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Instacart suffers steepest drop on record after disappointing revenue, lackluster forecast

The Instacart logo is seen on a smartphone and on a PC screen.

Pavlo Gonchar | SOPA Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Instacart‘s stock had its worst day on record, slumping 12% after the grocery delivery company posted a fourth-quarter revenue miss and offered light guidance for the current period.

Prior to Wednesday’s move, the stock’s biggest one-day slump came in November, when it dropped 11%.

Instacart reported fourth-quarter revenue of $883 million, falling short of the $891 million average analyst estimate, according to LSEG. The company said it anticipates adjusted earnings of between $220 million and $230 million for the first quarter, below a consensus forecast of $237.1 million.

Gross transaction value, which measures the value of products sold, will come in between $9 billion and $9.15 billion in the quarter, compared to a FactSet estimate of $9 billion. Instacart said it expects average order growth to decline due to restaurant orders and its $0 delivery fee on minimum $10 baskets.

When Instacart held its Nasdaq debut in September 2023, it became the first notable venture-backed company to go public in the U.S. in about two years, as the market adjusted to soaring inflation and rising interest rates.

The company, whose official corporate name is Maplebear, closed its first day on the market with a roughly $11 billion market cap, down from its $39 billion private market valuation in 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The stock peaked at $53.15 on Feb. 19 after rallying 76% last year. It closed on Wednesday at $42.80.

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