Affinity & Pear

Affinity is the CRM for private capital that helps firms turn their relationships into a competitive advantage. Affinity’s automated relationship intelligence gives dealmakers the context they need to move faster and close with confidence. Today the Affinity platform is used by over 3,300 private capital firms worldwide.

We first met Affinity founders Ray and Shubhi in 2014 when they joined the inaugural cohort members of Pear Garage, our program for undergraduate engineers. We mentored them while they were still students at Stanford, and when they eventually dropped out to launch Affinity, we invested in their pre-seed round.

From there, we got to work. We were actively involved in their product strategy, helped with sales and hiring, and made introductions to early customers. We were also an initial beta user—running product sessions with their team to sharpen the UI, UX, and functionality. When Ray and Shubhi were looking for mentors, we connected them to experts in our network, including Bob Tinker.

We helped Affinity refine their fundraising pitch and land on the right positioning to raise. We brought 8VC into their seed round, and 8VC went on to lead Affinity’s $13.5M Series A, with Pear’s participation. In 2019, Advance Venture Partners and Sway Ventures led Affinity’s $26.5M Series B.

Today, Affinity is helping the world’s leading private capital firms across 80+ countries turn their relationships into deal-winning intelligence.