Pre-seed & seed VC, US

Pear VC

Venture capital firm · Menlo Park · Founded 2013

Quick read

Pear VC is a pre-seed and seed venture firm founded in 2013 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California. It runs PearX, a 12-week hands-on accelerator, alongside its investing arm, and backs founders from idea stage through to institutional rounds. With ~$800M AUM and notable early bets on DoorDash, Dropbox, Guardant Health, and Gusto, co-founders Pejman Nozad and Mar Hershenson have each appeared multiple times on the Forbes Midas List.

Key facts

Founded
2013
Founders
Pejman Nozad, Mar Hershenson
Employees
11-50
Sectors
generalist, ai, saas, fintech, healthcare, biotech, climate, enterprise
Website
pear.vc

Investment thesis

Pear VC writes pre-seed and seed checks ($150K–$4M) into technology startups across AI, SaaS, enterprise, fintech, healthcare, biotech, and climate, pairing capital with in-house recruiting, go-to-market coaching, and accelerator infrastructure (PearX) to help founders build category-defining companies from day one.

Recent activity

  • Jul 2026product
    PearX S26 accelerator batch launched, continuing the program's twice-yearly cadence. startupintros.com
  • Apr 2026investment
    Portfolio company Sudozi was acquired by Zone & Company Software Consulting. tracxn.com
  • Mar 2026product
    PearX applications for the S26 cohort opened. The accelerator offers $250K–$2M per company over 12 weeks, with a reported 90% rate of follow-on raises. f4.fund
  • Mar 2026investment
    Pear VC backed Nomadic in an $8.4M funding round alongside TQ Ventures and Google DeepMind. tracxn.com
  • Feb 2026investment
    Pear co-led a Series A round in Amari alongside First Round Capital. f4.fund
  • Jan 2026investment
    Grove AI, a Pear portfolio company, was acquired by Hippocratic AI. f4.fund
  • Jan 2026product
    PearX W26 batch kicked off on January 5, 2026. startupintros.com
  • 2025investment
    Pear made 34 investments in 2025—27 first-round and 7 follow-on—deploying from Fund IV, which closed at $432M in May 2023. f4.fund
  • Jun 2025product
    Pear VC opened applications for its Fall 2025 Female Founders Circle (FFC), a 10-week in-person AI cohort now in its 9th iteration. The program has supported 320+ women engineers and founders since launch, with 50%+ raising pre-seed funding and $300M+ collectively raised since 2021. Deadline is July 31, 2025. thetopvoices.com
  • 2025product
    PearX S26 applications opened, with blog content and speaker series content referencing the W26 cohort now active. pear.vc
  • 2025investment
    Pear invested in Kin Health's $9M seed round. Kin is building a free consumer platform centered on the physician-patient conversation, helping patients retain and act on medical information. Founded by two practicing physicians and a third co-founder. linkedin.com
  • 2025press
    Portfolio company Vanta named to the 2026 CNBC Disruptor50 list. Vanta now serves 16,000+ customers across compliance, third-party risk, and security management. linkedin.com

Notable investments

Key people

Named individuals at the firm. We don't expose direct email or phone — use their LinkedIn for outreach.

  • Pejman Nozad · Founding Managing Partner
  • Mar Hershenson · Founding Managing Partner
  • Vivien Ho · Partner
  • Keith Bender · Partner
  • Addison Leong · Partner
  • Matt Birnbaum · Talent Partner
  • Naomi Chetrit Band · Head of Dorm / Senior Associate
    LinkedIn

Sources

Other VCs in United States

Explore VCs by sector

Globally

Frequently asked

What is Pear VC?+

Pear VC is a pre-seed and seed venture firm founded in 2013 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California. It runs PearX, a 12-week hands-on accelerator, alongside its investing arm, and backs founders from idea stage through to institutional rounds.

Where is Pear VC headquartered?+

Pear VC is headquartered in Menlo Park, United States.

When was Pear VC founded?+

Pear VC was founded in 2013 by Pejman Nozad, Mar Hershenson.

What sectors does Pear VC invest in?+

Pear VC focuses on generalist, ai, saas, fintech, healthcare, biotech, climate, enterprise. They primarily invest in these sectors.

How do I prepare for a meeting with Pear VC?+

Brief generates a structured pre-meeting briefing on any person at Pear VC — quick read, recent activity, points of view, and conversation openers tailored to what you sell. Sign in to get personalised openers for your product.

Meeting with someone at Pear VC?

Brief generates a structured pre-meeting briefing on any person in seconds.

Try Brief →

Generated by briefthecall.com from public web sources. Last updated July 23, 2026. Each claim is linked to its source above.

Automatically generated by AI from public sources. May be inaccurate or out of date. Remove or correct this profile →