July 2024 - Pear VC

Pear is built to support early-stage AI founders

Posted on July 22, 2024August 29, 2024 by jill

2023 was the year that generative AI went mainstream. 2024 is shaping up to be the year founders put AI to work across the board. Here at Pear, we specialize in pre-seed and seed stage investing, backing AI-first companies and helping you go from 0 to 1. We provide deep technical expertise, we’ve built a first-of-its-kind GenAI studio, and we have a unique platform team that helps you take off.

At Pear, we’ve been backing AI builders for over a decade, including these companies:

Historic Pear investments include: Gradio (acquired by Hugging Face), Solvvy (acquired by Zoom), Viz AI, Federato, Valar Labs, Orby AI

Since closing our fourth $432M fund in May 2023, we’ve doubled down on investing in the AI space. Below are just a few of our recent investments, with many more in stealth mode and 21 of our current 22 PearX S24 companies currently building in AI:

Recent Pear investments include: Cognition Labs, Guardrails AI, Ideogram, Kindroid

We believe that we’re just scratching the surface when it comes to what’s possible with AI. While we’re not alone in investing in the AI space, I do think we’re uniquely positioned to help early-stage AI founders for a few major reasons:

We’re deep AI experts and operators

Our AI partners are all former senior engineering leaders (Robinhood, Stripe, Dropbox, Cisco) and highly technical founders who have built high growth successful startups that were acquired by leading tech companies. As true experts, we’re able to deeply understand your technology and operating environment— and then work in the trenches with you. While many VCs can advise you on AI, Pear will dive in to actually help you whiteboard ideas, build out product roadmaps, get through difficult pivots, and scale out your company.

Pear’s AI team: Arash Afra khteh, Arpan Shah, Shravan Reddy

We work as a team

Pear’s vertical experts, like Eddie in biotech, Vivien in healthcare and Arpan and Shravan in fintech, are also here to support you, combining their industry expertise with our AI team’s long standing AI competency. Having founded, built, and scaled over 13 companies, when you get one of Pear investors, you get all of us.

We offer unparalleled resources at the early-stage

We’re an early-stage firm with the platform team of a much larger firm. Our talent team has four experienced recruiters, dedicated to help our founders find the best people, fast. They’ve already made over 116 hires for Pear companies, including 80 R&D hires such as AI engineers, NLP specialists, AI researchers, and more.

Similarly, our go-to-market team equips our founders with all they need to successfully navigate founder led sales: providing support with determining ideal customer profile and messaging, pricing and contract strategy, call coaching, co-piloting deals, and more. The team has supported technical founders like Streamline and Orby AI in getting their revenue engines going. Results of this support include doubling one AI company’s ARR in just one month and seeing a 150% increase in close rates and sales representatives efficiency.

We’re running Pear Studio: a first-of-its-kind GenAI studio and an elite founder network

Earlier this year, we opened Pear Studio SF, a first-of-its-kind 30,000 square foot working space in Mission Bay. This unique community includes over 200 entrepreneurs working alongside one another to launch the next generation of AI companies. We also host events like the Pear VC + Open AI Hackathon, where 150 developers and entrepreneurs brought their AI-powered ideas to life. We also help startups grow with unique access to perks like credits from Open AI, Microsoft Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud, discounted legal formation packages, and payroll and HR benefits.

Work with us, even if you are early in your journey

PearX is our elite accelerator for early-stage builders. We back companies early, when it’s often just a co-founder with an idea. Through PearX, you can with with the Pear team in Pear Studio to refine your MVP, design your GTM plan, expand your team, and launch successfully.

AI Spaces we’re especially excited about

Over the past year, Pear’s AI team has developed a thesis covering 16 pivotal areas in AI. We have already begun backing companies within many of these areas and look forward to meeting more exceptional founders innovating in these fields:

Human-Simulating Agents: AI agents that simulate human interactions, from companions to customer support.
Security and Assurance: AI leveraged solutions for defense through risks detection, prioritization, and automated mitigation, as well as evaluation and improvement of LLMs reliability
Synthetic Data Pipelines: Automated data gaps detection and synthetic data generation to train and improve LLMs performance.
Video: GenAI enabled creation, efficient editing, and enhancement of videos, revolutionizing both the movie and marketing industries.
Robotics: The era of robots has arrived. Standardization across hardware and software as well as model proliferation, allowing growing adoption of AI powered robots.
Domain-Specific Agents: Industry specialized AI agents capable of making intelligent decisions independently in code, healthcare, marketing and more.
Data is the New Code: Advanced data pipelines and integration solutions for AI orchestration layer.
Healthcare and Biotech: AI solutions that enhance and automate both non-clinical and clinical workflows, optimizing efficiency and quality of patient care and accelerating drug discovery, development, and access.
Enterprise Apps: Lean and customized apps built and powered by AI, delivering improved performance with minimal implementation effort.
New Models Modalities: Generative AI models capable of processing new, varied inputs such as biological and sensors data.
Dev Tools: Highly reliable and productive dev tools to detect bugs, test, and fix code, as well as to build new internal AI applications.
Simulations: AI-driven simulations allowing high accuracy and fidelity in complex simulations in a shorter time and less labor involved.
Application Layer: AI-based applications enhancing employee performance, saving time, and reducing manual work.
Marketplaces: AI-enabled marketplaces supercharging demand, supply or both sides with AI.
Evolution and Observation: New CI/CD platforms for AI systems.
Automations: AI-powered automation of workflows for process discovery, abstraction, and improved execution.

In the coming weeks, we’ll share more around each of these 16 areas and why we’re excited to back founders building in these spaces. If you want to learn more, visit our AI page.

Orby AI closes $30M Series A to continue building AI Agents for the Enterprise

Posted on July 18, 2024July 20, 2024 by lucy lee

Orby AI recently announced its $30 million Series A round, co-led by NEA, Wing Venture Capital, and WndrCo, with participation from Pear VC. We are proud to be Orby’s earliest investors (when a LinkedIn message from their CEO first connected us) and we are thrilled to continue our support now.

Orby’s Enterprise AI Automation tool automates complex workflows by observing users at work, identifying repetitive tasks, and writing the code to automate those tasks. Within minutes, a custom automation is ready to be implemented with user approval.

This is game changing.

Orby AI is Changing the Game by Disrupting Process Automation Market

Co-founder and CEO Bella Liu was heading AI Product at UI Path, a leading business automation software company, when she was first inspired with the idea behind Orby. At the time, the RPA (robotics process automation) software being used relied on human users to input specific “if this, then that” rules, which turned out to be rather fragile. For example, a user who frequently opens invoices and transfers numbers to a spreadsheet must specify exactly which buttons to click and where on the screen those buttons will be— a system that is prone to error, slow, and hard to scale.

Orby AI’s Model Learns and Implements Without User Input

Orby’s approach to business automation is a huge leap forward. Unlike traditional RPA models, Orby’s LAM (Large Action Model) approach means their product doesn’t need to be told which tasks to automate, or how. Orby simply observes a user at work, learns what could be automated, and creates the actions to implement it. The user just approves the process and can correct the model at any time, thus continuously helping Orby improve.

Why We Chose Orby AI

We’re very excited about Orby’s team. Co-founders Bella Liu and Will Lu bring deep experience and expertise in the AI and automation technology space. Bella (CEO) was previously the AI product leader at UiPath, from early-stage to post-IPO. Will (CTO) was previously the data platform leader at Google Cloud AI and was involved in three AI products with real world deployments within Google. Orby’s team was a great founder-market match for Pear’s thesis on AI automation for human to machine and machine to machine automation. We are pleased to have backed Orby early on, and remain certain they are the right group to work on this problem.

What Orby AI Does

Before partnering with Orby, the Pear team was already deeply interested in AI automation for enterprise applications, aiming to solve specific problems within distinct industries one vertical at a time. They believed that the kinds of AI tools which could understand specific use cases, gather necessary datasets, and execute targeted solutions were the future. Additionally, they had a thesis that semantic understanding of workflows, enabled by backend interaction data, could enhance the generalizability of RPA.

Orby’s team embraced a similar approach but expanded it to build a horizontal enterprise AI automation platform applicable across many verticals. Initially focusing on widely used workflows like invoice processing and expense auditing, they aimed to enhance their action-based foundational models. This led to the creation of a platform that delivers immediate value in various enterprise scenarios while achieving general-purpose AI automation.

Orby is pioneering a Generative Process Automation (GPA) platform, leveraging the industry’s first Large Action Model (LAM) for enterprise use. This platform enhances efficiency by enabling teams to automate complex tasks independently. Orby’s multimodal large action model, combined with an AI agent capable of symbolic reasoning and neural network analysis, seamlessly handles intricate automation requests.

When tasked with an assignment, Orby’s AI autonomously generates workflows, integrating with specialized AI agents for sub-tasks such as data analysis or customer interaction. By learning and automating workflows contextually and semantically, Orby surpasses traditional RPA systems. The LAMs empower Orby’s AI to understand and automate repetitive processes across unstructured datasets, emulating human capabilities.

This neuro-symbolic programming captures standard process flows and ensures robust exception handling, making AI-driven automation accessible and efficient for enterprises. Orby’s patented technology, which combines LAMs with advanced programming techniques, empowers workers to automate tasks without needing technical assistance. The system continuously learns and adapts, improving productivity and efficiency over time.

Market Opportunity

The market potential for automation in enterprises has been evidenced by the success of Robotic Process Automation (RPA). However, AI Process Automation, like that offered by Orby, goes beyond traditional RPA by making previously uneconomical use cases viable. The return on investment (ROI) for RPA is often hindered by high implementation and maintenance costs, limiting its applicability.

Orby’s innovative approach addresses two critical challenges of RPA:

1. Semantic understanding of automatable workflows versus fragile rule-based systems.

2. Hands-off, continuous online learning and improvement of both workflow discovery and implementation.

By discovering automatable repetitive workflows and generating maintenance-free AI automations, Orby significantly reduces implementation and maintenance costs. This makes a much larger share of repeatable workflows candidates for automation, substantially improving ROI and expanding an already large market.

This advancement is not merely an efficiency gain for high-volume, repeatable workflows. Imagine an AI capable of automating any workflow, regardless of volume, simply by demonstrating the process. This capability would enable enterprises to innovate their workflows at an accelerated pace, shifting focus to strategic improvements. In this competitive landscape, no enterprise can afford to ignore such technology, as those who adopt it will innovate faster.

To provide a baseline, a 2017 McKinsey Future of Work report estimates that 60% of jobs involve at least 30% repetitive tasks that can be automated. Orby has already demonstrated massive productivity gains in several Fortune 500 companies through successful use cases. This is just the beginning; the market opportunity is far greater.

How we partnered together

After funding Orby’s seed round in July 2022, in addition to our close partnership on product and vision, we leveraged the full Pear team to partner with them in the following two years. Ana Leyva and Pepe Agell worked with the Orby team on their product-market fit and GTM strategy, and Jill Puente helped them in marketing and PR, including landing the Business Insider piece announcing the initial seed round. Nate Hirsch from Pear’s talent team helped Orby hire eight out of their first ten team members (eight engineers, two designers, and a recruiter). When it was time for Orby’s Series A raise, the company went through Pear’s fundraising bootcamp with Mar’s full support behind them. As we say to founders at Pear: if you get one of us, you get all of us as partners.

We’re excited to have been supporting Orby AI since day one and look forward to their promising journey ahead!

Arash and Bella at our AGM summit in March 2024.

OnRamp announces $14.2M in funding to automate B2B customer onboarding

Posted on July 18, 2024July 18, 2024 by jill

Today, Pear’s portfolio company OnRamp announced its $14.2 million in funding across a seed and Series A round, led by Javelin Venture Partners and Contour Venture Partners, with Quiet Capital, Correlation, Flybridge and angels Louis Beryl, Claire Hughes Johnson, and Steve Fredette.

We first met OnRamp’s Co-founder and COO, Ross Lerner, when he was an MBA student at Harvard Business School. As we got to know Ross and his Co-founder and CEO Paul Holder, we were convinced of the critical onboarding problem they aimed to solve—an issue we had frequently observed within our own portfolio companies.

The B2B customer onboarding process is a significant pain point for many companies, often leading to delays in revenue recognition and decreased customer satisfaction. OnRamp addresses this underserved market by automating and streamlining the post-sales process, which is crucial for accelerating value, reducing costs, and protecting revenue.

OnRamp transforms a traditionally cumbersome task into a seamless experience through a no-code customer portal that allows businesses to automate complex onboarding workflows. This solution means any deal team or account relationship stakeholders can collaborate to reduce time to value for its customers and improve customer engagement and visibility.

Ross presented OnRamp to a handpicked investor audience at the PearX S22 demo day ahead of closing OnRamp’s seed round. Along the way, we’ve loved working with Paul and Ross on key hires, especially in building out pipeline and closing candidates in engineering and go-to-market roles.

Ross presented at PearX S22 Demo Day to hundreds of investors

Pear has also been a partner to OnRamp as they have expanded their product offerings to best serve large enterprises. We couldn’t be more proud that OnRamp now counts three of the Fortune 15 as its customers, serving industry leaders like Cardinal Health, CVS Health, and McKesson. OnRamp has tripled its revenue in each of the past three years and is on track to do so again this year, meaning that Paul and Ross have had plenty of opportunity to become power users of their own product.

To book a demo with OnRamp, visit onramp.us and experience firsthand how they can transform your customer onboarding process!

PearX S20 alum Seven Starling raises $10.9M to expand access to specialized women’s healthcare

Posted on July 16, 2024August 1, 2024 by jill

Today, PearX S20 alum Seven Starling announced a $10.9M Series A round to expand access to specialized women’s healthcare. The round was led by RH Capital and supported by Pear, Emerson Collective, March of Dimes, and others.

We’ve been backers of Seven Starling since day one of their company, and we’re excited to double down on them in this round. Not only have they proven to be an unwavering team but they have built an important and high growth business.

We met the Seven Starling founding team (Tina Keshani, Sophia Ritcher and Julia Cole) over a Zoom call in March 2020. At the time, they were students at Harvard Business school working on a startup called June Motherhood at the time, an on-demand support service for expecting mothers, providing personalized care at home and online throughout pregnancy, birth, and early motherhood.

*Tina, Sophia and Julia when they were students at HBS*

Ten days after our first meeting, COVID-19 shutdowns began. Despite the uncertainty at that moment in time, we decided to not only award them the Pear Competition, but also to invite them to join our PearX S20 cohort.

Here are a few characteristics that made Seven Starling stand out to us:

Exceptional consumer DNA: The Co-founders, Tina Beilinson (CEO), Sophia Richter (CPO), and Julia Cole (COO), were a fantastic group. They were exceptional, clear thinkers and communicators, scrappy operators that had spent months researching the space, and had strong consumer DNA, having worked at great consumer brands like Warby Parker and Kind.
Proof of execution. During the time in business school the team had tirelessly worked to validate their idea. By the time we met them, they had built a no-code prototype and had enrolled their first patients.
Strong mission and product vision: Seven Starling took flight to help women navigate the most meaningful transitions in their life.
Untapped opportunity in Women’s Health: 33 million suffer from mental health conditions every year. Women are also 2x more likely to suffer from depression than men. Just last year, one in three new mothers suffered from perinatal mood disorders. Maternal mortality in the US is higher than our peer countries and is actually worsening. According to the CDC, the number one leading cause of maternal deaths in the US is undiagnosed mental health problems. Seven Starling saw this gap four years ago and has reinvented the clinical standard for women’s behavioral health.

The summer of PearX S20, we worked together over Zoom. In just 12 weeks, they built an app, closed key partnerships and achieved their first revenue. They closed a Seed round right after demo day that included Pear alongside top-tier VCs such as Emerson Collective, Magnify Ventures, and Expa. They were off to the races.

*This was a Zoom check-in during PearX S20. The S20 cohort also included great companies like Expedock, Federato, Gryps, Sequel, Interface Bio, wagr, and rePurpose.*

Our partnership with Seven Starling went beyond PearX. We’ve worked closely with their team over the last four years to help them build the foundations of a long lasting company. Here are some of the ways we partnered with Seven Starling over the last four years:

Navigating to product market fit and working through a pivot:

A year after PearX, we realized that scaling the initial product was not going as planned. Despite the customer love, the acquisition costs were too high and healthy unit economics seemed elusive. We had a difficult call where we aligned that “it was not working” and decided to iterate again on the product. We worked together very closely for a few months and we went back to listening to the customers. As part of this exercise, we realized our most loyal customers were looking for mental health support. OB-GYNS were also desperate for solutions for their patients – most couldn’t offer that mental health support themselves.

We decided to initially focus on a very narrow value proposition: maternal mental health. Then, we figured out that we also needed to innovate in the acquisition channel. We partnered with OB-GYNs to build a trusted referral network that delivered high intention patients.

By focusing on a large but narrow value proposition ($8B+ maternal mental health market), we achieved product market fit and Seven Starling can now effectively grow into the nearly $55B+ women’s mental health opportunity. By innovating in the acquisition channel, we were able to grow rapidly with little cash spent: today 90%+ of Seven Starling’s patients are acquired through OB-GYN referrals, a key wedge into this market. A core value proposition to Seven Starling’s patients and referring providers is that they’re in-network with most major health plans including UnitedHealthcare, Cigna, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, and Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Hiring:

Our team has helped Seven Starling make critical hires. Early on, our partner Vivien introduced them to a key advisor: Dr. Amy Roskin. She was so bought into the team’s vision, she joined as their Chief Medical Officer in 2022. Amy was an OB-GYN for over 20 years, was previously the CMO of The Pill Club, and was also an attorney who specialized in Telemedicine law. Laura from our Talent team also jumped into hiring for Seven Starling, helping them hire their founding engineer. This was their first technical hire and they’ve had a tremendous impact on their journey.

*Vivien helped connect Seven Starling with Dr. Amy Roskin, Seven Starlin’s Chief Medical Officer, pictured on the left.*

Fundraising:

Since we started our partnership, we have helped the Seven Starling team navigate each of their fundraising rounds from determining the fundraising strategy, to pitch creation to coming up with the target investor list. We are happy to have a phenomenal group of investors around the table, all of which believe deeply in the vision of the company.

*Tina pitched live to hundreds of investors in Pear’s network in 2022.*

Where are they today?

Seven Starling has grown tremendously over the past year, they have also delivered industry leading time to care with seven days to first appointment (industry average is three-six months) and 90% statistically significant reduction in PHQ-9 score after completing the program. Over 85% of patients are in-network plans which means patients access care for just their copay. This is all a result of the incredible clinical and operational execution horsepower the team has demonstrated.

What is next?

We are excited about Seven Starling’s impact on women’s health. The space is still a huge untapped opportunity and behavioral health impact is inseparable from a woman’s overall health outcome. Seven Starling is positioned to meet the specialized needs of women throughout every stage of their lives, empowering them to thrive and achieve their fullest potential. I’m excited to join their board to support them on this ambitious and admirable mission.

It has been a privilege to partner with the Seven Starling team – their operational excellence and clarity of thought has made the journey to date an exhilarating one.

However, we realize the work is not over; we still have a lot to build! All of us at Pear VC are excited to continue our partnership with them.