Pear has raised $333 million for its fifth venture capital fund, bringing the firm's assets under management to more than $1.1 billion as it expands its early-stage investment strategy.
Founded in 2013 by Pejman Nozad and Mar Hershenson, Pear specializes in backing companies at the pre-seed and seed stages, often before founders have developed a commercial product. Its portfolio includes DoorDash, Gusto, Guardant Health and Vanta.
The new fund is approximately $100 million smaller than Pear's previous fund, raised in 2023. The firm plans to deploy capital more quickly, focusing on startups emerging from its founder network and PearX accelerator. Its strategy includes investing in companies working on artificial intelligence, enterprise software, healthcare and other emerging technologies.
Pear also announced that Arash Afrakhteh, Ajay Kamat and Shravan Reddy have become general partners, expanding its investment leadership across enterprise technology, consumer businesses and AI infrastructure.
The smaller fund reflects a deliberate choice to prioritize early investments rather than continually increase fund size. The test will be whether Pear can continue identifying promising founders before larger venture capital firms compete for ownership in their companies.