Pear VC Research
Firm Overview
Pear VC is a pre-seed and seed stage venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California, with an additional office in San Francisco at 1800 Owens Street. Founded in 2013 as Pejman Mar Ventures by Pejman Nozad and Mar Hershenson, the firm rebranded to Pear VC in 2016. With approximately $800M in assets under management across four funds—culminating in the $432M Fund IV closed in May 2023 (oversubscribed)—Pear is one of the most prominent seed-stage firms in Silicon Valley. The firm has seeded over 200 companies, with notable investments including DoorDash, Gusto, Guardant Health, Dropbox, Aurora Solar, Vanta, Branch, Viz.ai, Addepar, and Affinity. Both founders have been recognized on the Forbes Midas List in 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.
Investment Thesis
Pear's thesis is rooted in a conviction that exceptional founders—backed early with both capital and hands-on operational support—build the most enduring, category-defining companies. The firm positions itself as "founders-and-operators turned investors": its investment team has collectively founded 13+ companies and sold them to companies like Cisco, Instacart, and Medium. Pear believes that the best companies are built at the earliest stages when the right infrastructure—hiring, go-to-market, fundraising strategy, and sales process—is established before scaling.
Pear invests across a broad set of verticals: AI (applications, tooling, and infrastructure), Consumer (social, marketplaces, subscriptions, e-commerce, creator economy), SaaS (vertical and horizontal software), Enterprise Tech (data platforms, cybersecurity, developer tools), Healthcare (software-driven care delivery and health tech), Deep Tech (space, robotics, semiconductors, quantum computing, photonics), Fintech (consumer finance, banking infrastructure, fraud/risk, insuretech, payments, wealthtech), Biotech (therapeutics, diagnostics, life science tools), and Climate Tech (decarbonization, energy, mobility, carbon removal, the built environment). This breadth is supported by a 10-person specialist investment team with dedicated vertical experts for each domain.
Stage Focus and Check Size
Pear invests exclusively at the pre-seed and seed stages, with no formal Series A or growth capital strategy outside of follow-ons into existing portfolio companies. The firm operates two investment pathways:
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PearX Accelerator — A 12-week, small-batch (approximately 20 teams) accelerator program for pre-seed companies. Pear invests $250K–$2M per company, provides cloud credits exceeding $1M from providers like Microsoft Azure and OpenAI, and offers dedicated recruiters, GTM coaching, and pitch preparation for Demo Day. PearX applications for S26 are open as of March 2026.
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Seed Program — Direct seed investments of $1M–$6M in early-stage companies seeking product-market fit. Pear targets a $16.9M average Series A raise for portfolio companies (vs. the $10.9M industry average), demonstrating effective seed-to-Series-A bridging.
Overall check size range: $250K–$6M. Portfolio companies from Pear routinely attract Series A investors including a16z, Founders Fund, Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia, and Ribbit Capital.
Lead Tendency
Pear consistently leads or co-leads early rounds. As the first institutional investor in most of its portfolio companies, Pear establishes the investment terms and takes an active, board-level role in company development. The firm emphasizes that each company works "directly with a senior investor" rather than junior staff.
Recent Activity (2024–2026)
Pear has been actively deploying Fund IV since its May 2023 close. In 2025, the firm made 34 investments (27 first-round, 7 follow-on). Notable recent investments include:
- Feb 2026: Amari (Series A, co-led with First Round Capital)
- Jan 2026: Listen Labs (Series B, $69M — Pear was lead seed investor, with Ribbit Capital and Sequoia joining)
- Jan 2026: Quadric IO (Series C, $30M)
- Dec 2025: Bobyard (Series A, $35M, construction AI, with 8VC)
- Dec 2025: Federato (Series D, insurance AI)
- Nov 2025: Coverbase (Series A, AI procurement platform)
- Jan 2026: Snout ($10M, veterinary health)
- Ongoing: Gravis Robotics, Counsel Health, Dealops
Fund status: actively deploying from Fund IV.
Portfolio Highlights and Track Record
Pear has achieved a remarkable track record for a seed-stage fund:
- 4 IPOs: DoorDash (NASDAQ: DASH), Guardant Health (NASDAQ: GH), Senti Biosciences (NASDAQ: SNTI), BioAge Labs (NASDAQ: BIOA, Sep 2024)
- 5+ unicorns: Vanta, Addepar, Aurora Solar, Branch, Viz.ai
- 8 companies valued at $1B+: Aurora Solar, Branch, DoorDash, Guardant Health, Vanta, Viz.ai, Gusto, Cognition
- 35 acquisitions: Grove AI (acquired by Hippocratic AI, Jan 2026), Osmos, Foresight Diagnostics, Orby, The Rounds, and others
- 260 portfolio companies as of Feb 2026
Team
The investment team consists of 10+ investors with deep domain expertise across Pear's verticals. Key partners:
- Pejman Nozad (Founding Managing Partner): Former rug dealer and angel investor who backed Dropbox, DoorDash, Branch and others before founding Pear. Midas List 2021–2024; ranked #2 Midas Seed 2022.
- Mar Hershenson (Founding Managing Partner): PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford. 3x founder (Barcelona Design, Sabio Labs, Revel Touch). MIT Technology Review Innovator Under 35. Midas List 2021–2024.
- Ajay Kamat, Arash Afrakhteh, Eddie Eltoukhy, Harris Stolzenberg, Kathleen Estreich, Khalil Fuller, Pepe Agell, Ryan Sells, Shravan Reddy, Warren Shaeffer: Partners covering AI, biotech, enterprise, fintech, consumer, healthcare, and deep tech verticals.
- Matt Birnbaum (Talent Partner): Former head of talent acquisition at Instacart. Leads in-house recruiting services for portfolio companies.
The team also includes dedicated platform professionals in talent, GTM, marketing/PR, and fundraising.
Decision Process
Pear operates as a partnership with a multi-partner review process. For PearX, applicants go through an open application, one investor interview, and then a partner pitch. For direct seed investments, the firm reviews opportunities through its vertical specialist partners who act as primary champions. The firm typically moves quickly—especially for companies in its accelerator pipeline.
Founder Preferences
Pear bets primarily on people before ideas. They back technical and domain-expert founders who have either founded companies previously, worked at scale-ups (e.g., Instacart, Uber, Meta, Google, Cisco), or are academic researchers with deep domain expertise. They are notable for backing non-traditional founders—Pejman himself was an immigrant and rug dealer before becoming a VC—and they run programs specifically for underrepresented communities (Female Founders Circles, Persian Founders Circles, Dorm for student founders).
Geographic Focus
Primarily US, with the Bay Area (Menlo Park, San Francisco) as the epicenter. PearX requires companies to relocate to the SF Bay Area for the duration of the program. International portfolio representation exists but is selective (UK, Brazil, Colombia, Spain).
Founder Services
Pear is differentiated by its extensive post-investment platform:
- Talent: In-house recruiters (ex-Instacart, Uber, Meta) have made 175+ hires for portfolio companies
- GTM: Tailored go-to-market playbooks and 1:1 coaching
- Fundraising: Pitch deck clinics, investor introductions, negotiation coaching
- PR & Marketing: Strategic communications support
- Pear Studio: Company-building programs for very early founders
The firm's thesis is that the quality and speed of these services—not just capital—drive outsized returns at the seed stage.