Pear VC

Last updated
Pear VC
FormerlyPejman Mar
Company typePrivate
IndustryFinancial, Venture Capital, startup accelerator
Founded2013;12 years ago (2013)
FounderPejman Nozad, Mar Hershenson
Headquarters Menlo Park, California, USA
Key people
Pejman Nozad, Mar Hershenson
AUM US$800 million (2023)
Website www.pear.vc

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]

Contents

History

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]

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

  1. 1 2 Bradshaw, Kate. "Venture capital firm has leased historic Oasis building". www.almanacnews.com. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  2. ↑ Loizos, Connie (2022-05-21). "Pear, now nearly 10 years old and with numerous hits, looks to close its biggest fund by far". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  3. 1 2 "Pejman Mar Ventures, L.P. SEC Registration". sec.report. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  4. ↑ Chowdhry, Amit (August 23, 2023). "Pear VC: This Firm Runs An Early-Stage Bootcamp And Invests Over $800 Million Across 4 Funds". Pulse 2.0. Retrieved 10 July 2025.
  5. 1 2 Loizos, Connie (2016-08-16). "Pejman Mar rebrands as it unveils a $75 million new fund". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  6. 1 2 3 Konrad, Alex. "Their Venture Fund Was 'A Sign Of A Bubble.' Then They Turned $1.9 Million In DoorDash Into $440 Million". Forbes. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  7. ↑ Cai, Kenrick. "Inside Pear VC's Tiny Startup Accelerator That's Creating An Alternative To Y Combinator". Forbes. Retrieved 2023-06-19.
  8. ↑ Rao, Leena (2012-08-21). "Revel Touch Raises $10M To Help Retailers Create Sleek Mobile Commerce Apps". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2022-09-22.
  9. ↑ Review, MIT Technology. "Innovator Under 35: Maria Hershenson, 30". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 2022-09-22.
  10. ↑ Life, Kayhan (2021-04-07). "From Rug Dealing to Venture Capital: Meet Silicon Valley Superstar Pejman Nozad". KAYHAN LIFE. Retrieved 2022-09-22.
  11. ↑ Loizos, Connie (2016-04-18). "Meet VC Jeremy Fiance, UC Berkeley's 24-year-old superconnector". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  12. ↑ "How UC Berkeley plans to take on Stanford in big startup game". bizjournals.com. 2015-09-04. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  13. ↑ "Free Money for Student Tech Founders - David Teten". 2021-07-27. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  14. ↑ ParlayMe (2021-04-27). "After a decade of VC influence at Stanford, what's next?". ParlayMe. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  15. 1 2 "El fondo Pear VC elige Barcelona para expandirse en Europa". The New Barcelona Post (in European Spanish). 2021-12-27. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  16. ↑ "Pear VC's Mar Hershenson is Doubling Down on Zero Stage Investing". 500 Global. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  17. ↑ Heater, Brian (2019-03-14). "AI photo startup Polarr raises an $11.5 million Series A". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2022-09-22.
  18. ↑ Korosec, Kirsten (2022-04-25). "Discuss investor opportunities at TC Sessions: Mobility 2022". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  19. ↑ "The Midas List 2021". Forbes. 2021-11-16. Archived from the original on 2021-11-16. Retrieved 2022-09-22.
  20. ↑ "Midas Seed 2022". Forbes. Retrieved 2022-09-22.
  21. 1 2 "The Midas List 2022". Forbes. 2022-09-19. Archived from the original on 2022-09-19. Retrieved 2022-09-22.
  22. ↑ Loizos, Connie (2022-03-03). "Instacart's head of talent just left to join Pear VC; here's his take on the market". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2022-09-22.
  23. ↑ "Venture capitalists urge startups to withdraw funds from crisis-laden Silicon Valley Bank". CNBC. 2023-03-10. Retrieved 2023-06-19.
  24. ↑ "DoorDash-Backer Pear Raises $432 Million for Seed Venture Fund". www.bloomberg.com. Bloomberg. 2023.
  25. ↑ "Pear VC closes oversubscribed $432m seed fund". Private Equity Wire. Retrieved 2 August 2023.
  26. ↑ "DoorDash-backer Pear VC closes largest fund to date". www.venturecapitaljournal.com. 2023.
  27. ↑ "Pear VC". Stanford Graduate School of Business. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  28. ↑ Cai, Kenrick. "Inside Pear VC's Tiny Startup Accelerator That's Creating An Alternative To Y Combinator". Forbes. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
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