Pear VC, the Silicon Valley seed investor that was among the earliest backers of DoorDash, has closed its fifth fund at $333 million, choosing a smaller vehicle at a time when much of the venture industry's capital is flowing to a handful of giant firms.
Fund V is about $99 million smaller than the $432 million Pear raised in May 2023, a reduction of roughly 23 per cent. The close takes the firm's total assets under management above $1.1 billion, according to Tech Funding News.
Most of the new fund will be invested in pre-seed and seed-stage companies over roughly two and a half years, with a portion reserved for follow-on investments in breakout companies. Pear invests across artificial intelligence, business-to-business technology, biotech, consumer, deep tech, fintech and healthcare. The firm did not name its limited partners.
Founded on Early Conviction
Pear was co-founded in 2013 by Mar Hershenson and Pejman Nozad, who both serve as founding managing partners. Over 13 years, the firm has built a reputation for backing companies at their very earliest stages, often before they have a product or revenue.
Its track record includes early investments in DoorDash, Gusto, Vanta, Guardant Health and Affinity. The firm also runs PearX, an accelerator programme that has become a feeder for its portfolio.
Hershenson is one of the more prominent women leading a venture firm in Silicon Valley, a role that carries particular weight in an industry where women remain underrepresented among investing partners.
A Deliberate Bet on Access
The smaller fund size is a strategic choice rather than a sign of weakness, according to Pear's partners. Hershenson summed up the firm's thinking in five words: "Capital is becoming commoditised. Access is not." She argues that the firms closest to founders at the earliest stages will hold the advantage as the venture market evolves.
Nozad said Fund V gives Pear "the right amount of capital to keep doing that with focus, discipline, and the same early-stage conviction" that has defined the firm.
The logic is straightforward. At the seed stage, the scarcest resource is not money but the relationship with exceptional founders before anyone else spots them. If Pear can continue to back such founders first, a smaller fund costs it relatively little, because larger firms will lead later rounds in those companies, often on the strength of Pear's early involvement.
A Market Concentrating at the Top
Pear's fundraise comes against a backdrop of growing concentration in venture capital. US venture firms raised $67 billion across 585 funds in 2025, according to data from the National Venture Capital Association and PitchBook cited by Tech Funding News. The 10 largest funds took $22 billion, or 32.9 per cent of the total, up from 13 per cent in 2021. The remaining 575 funds shared about $44.9 billion, an average of roughly $78 million each.
At the other end of the spectrum, Bessemer Venture Partners recently closed $5.75 billion across two funds, and Bain Capital Ventures closed a $1.6 billion Fund XI. Endeavor Catalyst closed a $320 million Fund V.
In that context, a $333 million seed fund occupies a distinct position: large enough to lead early rounds and support portfolio companies through their first years, but focused enough to remain concentrated on the earliest stages.
The economics of fund size matter to the limited partners who invest in venture funds. A smaller fund needs fewer and smaller exits to return its capital several times over, which can make strong returns more achievable for a firm with a disciplined seed strategy. A single outcome on the scale of DoorDash can return a seed fund many times over. Larger funds, by contrast, must deploy far more capital, often into later and more expensive rounds, and need correspondingly bigger exits to generate the same multiples. Pear's decision to raise less may therefore appeal to investors who value return multiples over the absolute size of the cheques a firm can write.
Recent Portfolio Momentum
Pear pointed to several recent portfolio successes as evidence of its approach. Listen Labs, which uses AI agents to interview customers, signed a definitive agreement on 29 September to be acquired by Salesforce. Forus, an AI platform for insurance approvals, financial-assistance paperwork and pharmacy steps, raised a $150 million Series C at a $3 billion valuation, tripling its value in four months.
Gravis Robotics, a Zurich startup that retrofits autonomy kits onto excavators, raised a $200 million Series A from SoftBank at a reported $1 billion post-money valuation; Pear had joined its earlier $23 million round in November 2025. Vals AI, which tests AI models on professional tasks and came through PearX in 2023, raised a $40 million Series A at a $400 million valuation led by Andreessen Horowitz after Pear participated in its $5 million seed round.
Other portfolio companies include Andera, which automates internal-audit testing under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and raised $37 million in a round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Phinity Labs, which builds autonomous chip design tools and has reached an eight-figure annualised revenue run rate, according to Pear.
A New Generation of Partners
Alongside the fund close, Pear promoted three investors to general partner, all of them former founders.
Arash Afrakhteh, who joined Pear in 2020, invests in enterprise and B2B companies across AI, machine learning, cloud and data infrastructure. He co-founded Cariden Technologies, which Cisco acquired in 2012. Ajay Kamat, who joined in 2015, invests in consumer, fintech and healthcare; he co-founded Wedding Party, a Pear-backed company acquired by Instacart, and served as its chief executive. Shravan Reddy, who joined in 2024, focuses on AI infrastructure, robotics and vertical AI; he co-founded Pixelapse, which Dropbox acquired, and led engineering teams at Stripe.
In a joint statement, Nozad and Hershenson called the promotions one of the most meaningful milestones in Pear's history, noting that 13 years after founding the firm, it now has a new generation of general partners.
The Test Ahead
Pear's strategy faces a genuine test in today's market. AI startups are raising enormous rounds at early stages, and breakout companies can go from seed to $150 million or $200 million rounds within months. As Tech Funding News observed, the open question is how much ownership a seed investor can retain in a breakout company once rounds of that size arrive.
If Hershenson is right that access matters more than capital, Pear's smaller fund will prove no handicap. If she is wrong, the firm may find itself diluted out of its biggest winners. Either way, Fund V offers a clear statement of conviction from one of Silicon Valley's most established seed investors about where value is created in venture capital.
