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Pear VC
Seed-stage venture firm From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Pear VC (prior name Pejman Mar) is a seed-stage venture firm based in Menlo Park, California.[1] It was founded by Pejman Nozad and Mar Hershenson in 2013.[2][3] Pear VC works with early-stage companies. The company was originally based in Palo Alto, California[3] before relocating to Menlo Park.[1] It had approximately US$800 million in assets under management as of 2023.[4]
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History
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The company launched under the name Pejman Mar Ventures, in 2013.[5][6] Pear VC was founded by Pejman Nozad and Mar Hershenson, and features both a venture investing arm and an accelerator launched in 2014. By 2021, the accelerator had overseen 80 companies through the program.[7]
Prior to founding the company, Hershenson had founded software companies Barcelona Design, Sabio Labs, and Revel Touch.[8][9] Nozad had served as a sports journalist, radio host, professional soccer player, and rug salesman before going into venture capital.[10]
In 2015, Pejman Mar sponsored a $250,000 startup competition at UC Berkeley.[11][12] Over time, the company has also sponsored fellowship and entrepreneurship programs under the name “Pear Dorm” at other educational institutions such as Stanford University, Harvard University, and MIT.[6][13][14]
Pejman Mar rebranded as Pear VC in 2016.[5] Pear VC was one of the companies backing DoorDash prior to its launch.[6] Other companies Pear VC has supported include Guardant Health,[15] Gusto,[15][16] Polarr[17] and Branch.[18]
For their work with Pear VC, Hershenson was ranked number 29 and Nozad was ranked 15 on Forbes’ 2021 Midas List.[19] The following year, Nozad was named number 2 on Forbes’ 2022 Midas Seed List[20] and number 15 on the regular Midas List,[21] while Hershenson was ranked number 30 on the Midas List.[21]
In 2022, Matt Birnbaum, former head of talent acquisition at Instacart, joined Pear VC as its head of talent.[22]
On the 10th of March, 2023, CNBC reported that Pear VC had urged its portfolio companies to withdraw funds from Silicon Valley Bank before SVB had collapsed.[23]
Pear raised $423m for a seed venture fund in 2023, and had also invested in Guardant Health and Gusto at the two company's inceptions.[24] It targeted pre-seed and seed investments in artificial intelligence.[25] It closed its largest fund at that point in May 2023, with investors in previous funds including the Inasmuch Foundation, Los Angeles Fire & Police Pension System, the Richard King Mellon Foundation, and the Passport Foundation.[26]
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Investment model
Pear VC mainly works with startups in their earliest stages, such as pre-seed and seed-stage companies.[27] Pear VC uses a two-pronged structure in which it houses both a venture investing arm and an accelerator.[28]
References
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