Pear VC, a Menlo Park, CA-based pre-seed and seed stage VC firm, closed its 4th fund, at $432m.
The funding will be used to continue investing in pre-seed and seed rounds of startups working in competitive areas like AI, and programs like PearX, the firm’s early-stage bootcamp for founders, Pear’s Female Founders Circle, a community for technical female entrepreneurs, and Pear Dorm, which supports student builders. With Fund IV, the firm will be adding a new track: PearX for AI, a program tailored for AI builders with added benefits like hacker space, cloud credits, and 1:1 coaching with AI experts from the firm’s team and organizations like Google Cloud.
Led by Founding Managing Partners Pejman Nozad, and Mar Hershenson, Pear VC is a pre-seed and seed stage VC firm that partners with entrepreneurs from their earliest days to build category defining companies. The firm runs multiple programs to support early-stage entrepreneurs, including PearX, a 14-week long early-stage bootcamp for founders which has already backed Affinity, Xilis, Federato, Viz.ai, and Cardless.
Pear also has a deep history in investing in student builders through the Pear Dorm program. Today, 50% of its portfolio companies are student-founded, representing $15 billion in total valuation, including Branch, Aurora Solar, Affinity, Viz.ai, and Bioage. With Fund IV, Pear will be expanding its Dorm team and introducing new programs.
Pear also runs a Female Founders Circle program, which is focused on helping train technical female founders moving into entrepreneurship. With Fund IV, Pear looks to increase the size and scale of this program, as well.
The firm has invested in top-tier companies including DoorDash, Gusto, Branch, Guardant Health, Aurora Solar, Vanta, Affinity and so many more.
FinSMEs
30/05/2023