Today, we’re opening applications for our PearX W26 cohort, which will start in January 2026. PearX is a hands-on, small-batch, pre-seed 12-week accelerator and we encourage all companies, whether at the idea stage or already demonstrating traction, to apply here now.
About PearX
Key Dates
- Applications open: Today, August 28th, 2025
- Applications close: September 13th at 11:59 PM PST
Why PearX?
Over the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing more details on all the unique benefits PearX founders receive. PearX counts top performing companies like Viz.ai, Affinity, Xilis, Capella Space, Cardless, Nova Credit, Federato, and Valar Labs among its alumni. Pear has also backed DoorDash, Dropbox, Vanta, Aurora Solar, Gusto, and Guardant Health at the seed stage
At PearX, we provide custom services and support for each company. From capital, hiring, GTM support, to follow-on financing support, everything we do is tailored to the founder needs and fostering community amongst the cohort. We know the start-up journey is difficult and we’re here to partner and support you every step of the way.
Here is what you get with PearX:
- Capital to build your company: We invest between $250k and $2M in every PearX company. We know that some founders only need a small amount of capital to ideate and other teams are in more capital-intensive verticals that require more funding. All companies are unique so we’ll work with you.
- Cloud Credits: We provide up to $1 million in credits from top providers like Azure, OpenAI, AWS, Google, Anthropic, and many more.
- Founder to founder support: Work 1:1 with a Pear partner who has been in your shoes and knows your industry. Our team has started and sold 10 companies to the likes of Cisco, Instacart, Plaid, and Zynga.
- Join the best community: Entrepreneurship doesn’t have to be a lonely journey. Joining PearX means joining a community of like-minded founders. We kick off each batch with Camp Pear: a 3-day retreat in early January for the entire cohort to come together, learn key company building tactics, and get to know one another. Not only will you work alongside your PearX batch for 12+ weeks, but you’ll also have the wider PearX alumni network to lean on.
- Access Pear Studio: Everyone in PearX receives dedicated office space in Pear Studio SF, our stunning 30,000 square foot office space with standing desks, conference rooms, phone booths, and more. This space is completely free to you and your team for the first 9 months.
- Build a scalable sales motion: Our go-to-market team, Pepe and Ana, will guide you through the critical steps of sales: nailing ICP, prospecting, customer discovery, messaging, and more.
- Recruit the best talent: Our dedicated PearX Recruiter, Nate, will find your founding engineer, co-founder, or whatever critical hire your team needs. In the last two cohorts, Nate has hired 32 people for our PearX companies. Nate leads the full cycle of recruiting for your team – from sourcing to closing candidates. This is an unprecedented level of support for an accelerator, but that’s how much we believe that hiring impacts company building. Last batch, Nate hired an average of two people per PearX company.
Raise more capital: Our Demo Day is the day many of our companies come out of stealth. It’s attended by hundreds of the top General Partners from the venture capital industry.. We help you raise additional capital when you’re ready. From perfecting the story and creating a pitch deck to creating a target investor list and negotiating and closing your round. In fact, 80+% of companies that go through PearX raise capital from institutional investors.
What we’re looking for
In addition to specialized verticals like healthcare, biotech, and robotics, we invest in all the layers of emerging AI and the complete infrastructure stack. From chips to specialized foundational models to applications and the tooling that enables the next generation of applications and infrastructure, we’re interested in all of it.
For example, in the AI agentic world, what is possible is shifting rapidly bringing previously impossible use cases within the range of possible:
Most of these difficult to build use cases touch many layers of the AI stack with opportunities to innovate at each layer. In a future post, we will delve into some of these opportunities across the following layers:
Are you interested in joining our PearX W26 cohort? We’re looking for the next generation of category defining companies. Please apply now at pear.vc/pearx-application.