Arash Afrakhteh

Partner

AI, AI Infrastructure, B2B, Deep Tech, Enterprise

Arash has been an entrepreneur for more than two decades, with experience at startups and big tech.

He co-founded Cariden Technologies, a pioneer infrastructure SDN and bootstrapped it for 11 years to a majority market share before its acquisition by Cisco.

At Pear, Arash is focused on enterprise and B2B startups with a sub-focus on AI/ML, xloud, and data centers, data infrastructures, and SDx with x being various aspects of infrastructure. He loves working with founders from day one, getting into the trenches, and collaborating on company building, from engineering and processes, to hiring and culture, and GTM and fundraising. He believes that a leader’s impact begins with their team.

Arash is based in Menlo Park and graduated from Sharif University of Technology with a degree in Computer Engineering.

Outside of work…

You’l find me skateboarding, road and mountain biking, skiing, training for triathlons, and acting in theater.”

most used emoji

🚀

favorite book

The Divān of Hafez

Childhood dream job

Break dancer

favorite sports teams

The German national soccer team. Other than that, if there is a choice of watching a game or playing in a game, I always choose the latter.

Selected Investments

Aklivity
Aklivity

API gateway for real-time Kafka data streaming

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DevAI
DevAI

AI agents for enterprise IT network management

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Edge DB
Edge DB

Stateless, Postgres-based data infrastructure

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Expedock
Expedock

AI-powered freight documentation automation for logistics companies

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Federato
Federato

AI platform for insurance underwriting and risk management

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Gravis Robotics
Gravis Robotics

Autonomous earthmoving technology

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Ideogram AI
Ideogram AI

AI image and video generation platform for creative teams

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Listen Labs
Listen Labs

AI platform for customer interviews at scale

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Orby AI
Orby AI

AI agent platform for automating complex enterprise workflows

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Osmos
Osmos

Agentic AI data engineering platform

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Topsort
Topsort

AI monetization infrastructure for retailers and marketplaces

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UpDoc AI
UpDoc AI

FDA-cleared agentic AI platform for clinical care delivery

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Vals AI
Vals AI

Independent benchmarks and evaluation infrastructure for artificial intelligence

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Wood Wide AI
Wood Wide AI

Numeric reasoning API for generative AI platforms

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