Pear VC: State of Early Venture in 2022

By Anne Beyer, Robert Siegel, Gelila Bekele
2022 | Case No. E783 | Length 19 pgs.

Mar Hershenson and Pejman Nozad founded Pear VC in 2014 to invest in early-stage start-ups in Pre-Seed and Seed funding rounds. Over the years, Pear developed numerous cohort-based programs to work with founders and build new ventures such as Pear Garage, Pear Competition, and Pear Fellows.

The case examines the history and evolution of the early-stage venture capital industry over the last two decades. The case also explores the challenges associated with managing and scaling early-stage venture capital firms. Hershenson and Nozad provide insight into different aspects of early stage venture capitalists’ jobs: deal sourcing, pre-investment due diligence, work to support portfolio companies, and managing the venture capital fund as a business.

Learning Objective

The learning objectives of this case are:

  • Understand the changing dynamics of seed stage investing over the last decade.
  • Analyze the key investment criteria and the underlying incentives when evaluating investment terms.
  • Evaluate the appropriate balance between portfolio operations to support companies and investment sourcing to enhance deal flow.
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