Topic: Announcement

We’re excited to announce that Arpan Shah has joined Pear as a FinTech Visiting Partner! He’s working with Pear companies to share his learnings earned through founding and selling his financial APIs company to Plaid, as well as leading engineering at Robinhood for over 5 years. We’re incredibly glad to be working with him again many years after he graduated from our first Pear Stanford Garage cohort in 2014.

When we started Pear Stanford Garage in 2014, Arpan Shah was among the first 12 members in our inaugural cohort. “There were a few things that I found really fun and exciting in particular: getting a chance to meet with a lot of founders, figuring out approaches to early product, iterating on products, fundraising, timing, team building— the elements which go into starting an early early company. I learned a lot of that through the conversations, talks, and sessions that we had at Garage.” We’re so excited to partner with Arpan as a Visiting Partner and have his support for our Winter Accelerator!

After earning a Masters in Computer Science at Stanford, Arpan joined Robinhood as an early engineer in the founding team. “Pear played a role in that; I really felt like a lot of value could be created by being part of something super early. I ended up joining Robinhood at the time because I felt like finance was a big part of all of our lives,” Arpan says. “I was particularly excited because I’d always found investing to be hard in the US.” 

Arpan eventually became the Head of Data Platform and Data Products at Robinhood, leading a team of 40+ engineers and engineering managers. “I helped start the data team there, and I grew that into areas like risk and fraud, growth and marketing, data products like search, newsfeed, various aspects of the crypto product, data infrastructure, experimentation, and data platforms.”

“In October 2020, I started Flannel. I had seen a lot of the challenges of money moving in the US being super slow,” Arpan says. “My co-founder and I really felt like we could make that a lot better by leveraging some of the more modern payment methods that were starting to emerge.” Flannel raised a $6.3m seed from Accel and Index, launched an early product, and last March, Arpan sold the company to Plaid. 

Throughout the years, Arpan has been angel investing across companies in investing, insurance tech, lending, financial access. “The thing that I’m hoping to bring as a Visiting Partner to Pear is a lot of my FinTech experience— the network I have amongst FinTech practitioners and entrepreneurs as well as helping inform appropriate methods to grow businesses and partner with companies.”

Arpan’s tips for early-stage founders

Hire for relevant experience in the here and now of what you’re working on. 

• In early startups, one of the really important things is to hire for the very near term— trying to solve the problems of the here and now. Early founders often think about bringing in someone who has a ton of experience at really large organizations. Oftentimes, those lessons aren’t super applicable or don’t translate well compared to someone who’s been through this early stage phase of development.
• Engineering leadership is critical to hiring early on. Focus on hiring folks who are high growth; experience is not as important, it’s much more important that they can really, really execute at this stage of the company. If you’re looking for experience, I think the experience that makes a lot of sense is people who have worked through the stage of the company you’re in. 

Understand the regulatory landscape of the space you’re operating in.

• If you’re in insurance tech, understanding how insurance regulation works is super important. If you’re in the brokerage or investing space, understanding how FINRA and SEC largely regulate those industries is really important. If you’re in the payment space, understand how the money transmitter licenses or money services business regulations work really well.
• The biggest challenge fintech companies often face, which we did as well, is figuring out how to navigate regulation effectively. A key hire that people often don’t think about is bringing in someone with a background to ensure that their product from the very early stages is compliant. Oftentimes, FinTech founders get tripped up because they think they can move as quickly as a lot of their peers. The “move fast break things” model that people often think they can do in other industries doesn’t quite work as cleanly for FinTech. FinTech founders may need a little bit more patience and understanding that a big part of the landscape is not just the product and how you succeed in getting customers, but also how you succeed in navigating the regulatory landscape.

Find the right partners for the journey.

• People think really carefully about founding teams, but I think it’s also really important to partner with investors who really understand early stage company building. And not every investor does. One of the big aspects about successful alignment between investor and founder is investors who can understand that the early part of the company building process is messy, and so they’re willing to get into that mess with you to help solve those problems with you. 

“I’m really, really looking forward to working with founders who are building really innovative products that help expand what is possible here in the US when it comes to financial access or financial products,” says Arpan. “When you look at a lot of the other parts of the world, it’s remarkable how much innovation has happened in the financial landscape over the last decade. I think a lot of people think that we’re in the last legs of it, but honestly, I think we’re just getting started. I’m really excited to see all the exciting innovative stuff people can come up with, especially as newer ecosystems like crypto get unlocked and better infrastructure comes online.”

Connect with Arpan at arpan@pear.vc and on Twitter @arpanshah29!

Alumni of the Pear Fellows program are shaping the venture capital and tech industries, including 37 VCs, 22 startup founders, and 18 product managers. Read on to meet the next generation of Fellows!

This year, 14 new Fellows were selected from hundreds of student applications. We select our team of Fellows optimizing for diversity of thought and a shared passion for supporting early-stage founders. Fellows work directly with our investment team to discover founders, make investment decisions, and support startups.

If you’re a student working on a startup, we encourage you to reach out to a Fellow and/or explore the following Pear opportunities:

• Pear Competition: $100K uncapped, for exceptional people determined to solve big problems.
• Pear Accelerator: $500-750K @ $10M, when you have clarity on a big vision and the right team to go after it.
• Pear Seed: up to $3M, when you have a compelling evidence of customer love.

37 Fellows alumni are now VCs, including Nicole Quinn (GP Lightspeed) and many more at top funds including a16z, General Catalysts, Pear, Khosla, General Atlantic, DFJ Growth, DST Global, DCM, Industry, and Bessemer. We recognize our role in training the next generations of diverse VCs and startup founders, with 51% of our Fellows alumni female-identifying.

If your university does not have a Fellow, or if you are no longer a student, we still encourage you to engage with Pear! The Fellows cohort is small to ensure that each Fellow receives focused attention from the Pear partners, however, we also seek to partner with founders from all backgrounds.

2022 Fellows

Stanford

Greg Barrow is a MBA candidate at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He began his career in the Air Force, graduating first in his class of over 200 cadets. As an acquisitions officer, Greg procured communications equipment and software licenses at an enterprise-level, awarded non-dilutive funding to startups via the SBIR and STTR programs, and served as a Defense Ventures Fellow. He later spent time at The Engine and Five Four Ventures. Prior to enrolling at Stanford, Greg received his BA in Economics from DePauw University, and his MA in Public Management from Johns Hopkins University.

Shaneez Mohinani was an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs, raising capital from and providing investment advice to governments, central banks and endowments across Southeast Asia. Prior to that, while in undergrad, she had run a seed funding program for underserved entrepreneurs across emerging Asia. Shaneez is currently a MBA student at Stanford, where she is also a Food and Ag-Tech investor at the GSB Impact Fund. Shaneez enjoys traveling and taking on extreme spice challenges.

Linda Tong is a sophomore at Stanford studying computer science. Previously, Linda was a member of #builtbygirls, a fellow at EVCA, and an intern at Foothill Ventures. Linda enjoys reading, sharing book recommendations with friends, learning new languages (coding, living, or dead), and playing golf.

Alexandra Jenkins is a Stanford MBA candidate who invested in healthcare, edtech, and HR in Latin America at ALLVP, a Mexican VC. Prior to that, she worked at McKinsey for 3 years in various LatAm countries and Spain. She’s interested in healthcare and mental health, especially in the LatAm region.

MIT

Daniela Velez is studying computer science at MIT. She has worked on edtech and consumer tech projects and has worked in software engineering at Facebook, Microsoft, and Figma. On campus, she leads the undergraduate entrepreneurship club, StartLabs, and she is passionate about social impact and urban planning. She also loves playing piano, reading, traveling, and living in hacker houses.

UC Berkeley

Alex Rohrbach is an MBA student at University of California, Berkeley Haas. He previously led marketplace operations at Wonolo, an on-demand staffing platform, and worked as an engagement manager at McKinsey. Alex is passionate about the future of work, marketplaces, e-commerce, and finance, and will often share gummies from Pink Panda, his side-hustle, better-for-you candy company. Alex enjoys watching French movies and cycling.

UPenn

Joy Chen is a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania studying business analytics in the Wharton School. Originally from the suburbs of Los Angeles, Joy has previously worked in a coffee shop and Greek restaurant where she became interested in food and restaurant technology. This past summer, she worked for Yum China and now writes about kitchen robotics for the Spoon. At Penn, she is part of the Innovation Fund Investment Team as well as Sigma Eta Pi, Penn’s entrepreneurship fraternity. Joy enjoys film photography, distance running, and cooking for her friends.

Naomi Chetrit Band is a MBA student at Wharton. Prior to Wharton, she lived in Israel working closely with startups, entrepreneurs, and investing firms at EY-Parthenon. Naomi completed a dual degree in Law (LL.B.) and Accounting (B.A.) at the Reichman University (IDC Herzliya). Before joining EY-Parthenon, she practiced law and then accounting, following which she became a Certified Lawyer and Certified Public Accountant. At Wharton, Naomi is a VP of Venture Capital Career Development, a Partner in Wharton Venture Partners, and co-President of the Israel Club. In her free time, she enjoys cooking and baking her grandmothers’ Moroccan specialties, traveling and exploring new places and cultures.

Robert Templeton is a MBA at Wharton. Prior to school he worked at Premji Invest, a growth equity and public equities focused fund investing across Tech, Consumer, and Healthcare. At Wharton, Robert is the VP of Events for the Cybersecurity Club and is working on a sector thesis as a member of Wharton Venture Partners. In his free time he enjoys playing in the Wharton Hockey League and spending time with his dog Boogie.

Adam Lawal is a first year MBA student at Wharton double majoring in Finance and Entrepreneurship/Innovation. Prior to business school, he worked in M&A advisory and Private Credit Investing. At Wharton, Adam is an active member of the PEVC club, Entrepreneurship Club, and Founders Club. In his free time, he enjoys playing ice hockey, photography, and trying out new restaurants in Philly.

Joanna Shan is a second-year at the University of Pennsylvania studying Urban Studies and Statistics. She just returned from a gap year spent building Monet, the dating and friendmaking app where you send a drawing to start the conversation, and teaching high school students design, all while living in Portland, SF, NYC, and Oahu. She’s passionate about education, storytelling, and technology for good.

Harvard

Noah Zweben is an HBS MBA student and software engineer interested in tackling problems that help preserve our planet and do good for the world. He has experience in climate and civic tech at companies like Votem and Bowery Farming. In his free time, Noah is passionate about exploring the great outdoors and painting.

Toby Emanuel was previously a surgical resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Toby completed his undergrad at Washington University in St. Louis, earned his MD at Brown University, and is now an MBA student at HBS. He is interested in digital health, and is particularly passionate about improving the value of our healthcare system.

Margaret Shen is a first-year student at HBS. Previously, she was a product manager at Dropbox launching new B2B products and integrations. She was also a PM at OakNorth, a fintech startup based in London, where she led the ML and data ingestion teams. Margaret graduated from Stanford with degrees in Computer Science and English. She is originally from the Bay Area and loves to bike and hang out with cats in her spare time.

With $3.8 billion deployed in 2021 as compared to $4.1 billion in the US, Europe is now the second largest region in the world when it comes to early-stage investments. Europe now has 321 unicorns, up from 223 in 2020, and still has $23 trillion of potential value to be unlocked. We’ve frequently heard from European entrepreneurs that nothing like Pear exists on the continent, which is why we’re so excited to bring Pear to the European startup ecosystem and share our know-how, network and 0 to 1 expertise with talented entrepreneurs in the region. 

Leading the way is Pepe Agell, our newest partner spearheading Pear Europe. Pepe is the former co-founder and CEO of Chartboost, backed by Sequoia, which he successfully sold to Zynga after leading the team for ten years. “In 10 years, you go through many different lives in the startup world.” Pepe says. “I’ve gone through hypergrowth, plateau, decline, going back up again.” Nowadays as an investor, Pepe is full of advice from his years of operating experience. “I feel really excited about not only how high quality the team is, but also just the fact that I get to help other founders succeed and share my experiences.”

Pepe just moved back to his hometown of Barcelona, where he studied mechanical engineering at the Polytechnical University of Catalonia. He completed his Masters in Management, Technology, and Economics at ETH in Zurich, which is when he first fell in love with entrepreneurship and Silicon Valley. “Once we graduated, with no savings, no visa, no job or anything, we decided to come here just to learn,” remembers Pepe. He started his career working in business development for enterprise software, becoming the Head of Business Development at 3scale and eventually went on to co-found Chartboost. 

When we met Pepe, we knew he had the Pear DNA and invited him to join us as a Pear Visiting Partner. It didn’t take long to hear from our founders that Pepe provides thorough, knowledgeable, and enduring support as a trusted and committed advisor. He is the consummate ambassador and vanguard for Pear as we take small but focused steps to support the most promising European companies from day zero. 

“I’ve experienced first hand that this is a marathon, it’s not a sprint,” says Pepe. “When we’re looking at a team, we want to make sure that not only are they smart, they have a unique angle. They know ‘why now’ and they have the ingredients to endure.” 

“Pear is bringing its knowhow, network and platform to Europe and partnering with entrepreneurs at the earliest stages.” said Pejman Nozad, co-founder of Pear VC.

Building a category-defining business in Europe? Connect with Pepe on Twitter @joseluisagell or say hi to him in Barcelona!

We’re looking for a Director of Accelerator Operations to grow our renowned early-stage Accelerator. As the Director of Accelerator Operations, you’ll oversee the program from company selection to Demo Day.

We’re looking to onboard a full-time Director before our upcoming Winter Accelerator in 2022.

In order to cultivate a more inclusive venture ecosystem, it’s important that funds like us continue to post open roles publicly. We are committed to building a diverse team internally, across our portfolio, and within the other Pear programs.

Pear Accelerator guides early-stage founders towards building category-defining companies

Pear VC is a leading early stage fund based in Palo Alto and San Francisco. We’ve partnered at the seed stage with world changing startups now worth over $100 billion, including Doordash, Gusto, Branch, Vanta, and Guardant Health.

The Pear Accelerator is a three-month long bootcamp culminating in a demo day to thousands of top investors. It includes a tailored curriculum and program across finding product-market fit, hiring your first employees, closing your first customers, fundraising your Series A and beyond. During the 2021 Summer Accelerator, we worked closely with 15 teams over 17 weeks, culminating in a Demo Day with over 700 investors in attendance.

Pear Accelerator has been the birthplace of category-defining companies Affinity, Xilis, Capella Space, Nova Credit, Cardless, Viz.ai, and more, with 69 alumni companies overall having a cumulative valuation of $1.5B. This winter, for the first time, we are offering teams an investment of $500k at a $10M valuation cap. 

Providing founders personal, hands-on help is our first priority. We intentionally accept a small cohort to foster a tight community, allowing our partners to spend quality time with each Accelerator team.

Director of Accelerator Operations Role

As Director of Accelerator Operations, you’ll have a major impact on the long term success of Pear by improving the program with each cohort. Working hand-in-hand with Pear Investment Partners, you’ll source and support our Accelerator companies, guide them through the program, and make sure operations run smoothly. You’ll support key players including founders, mentors, and sponsors to get the best outcomes possible for our Accelerator companies.

We’re looking to onboard a full-time Director before our upcoming Winter Accelerator in 2022.

Responsibilities include:

• In conjunction with the Investment Partners, plan, improve and implement the full execution of Pear Accelerator from sourcing companies through Demo Day.
• Create and execute the application & interview process alongside the Investment team.
• Manage week-to-week team progress by running weekly check-in meetings and serve as the conduit between cohort teams and the Investment Partners.
• Lead promotion and marketing of Accelerator program and managing design resources 
• Improve and augment Pear resources for companies, including but not limited to content, preferred vendors, mentors and business partners.
• Manage program logistics like operations, budgeting, scheduling, calendar management, event planning, mentor coordination, office coordination, and founder community.
• Manage the Accelerator community by making sure that founders, investors, mentors and partners build strong relationships.
• Recruit, onboard, and match mentors and teams.
• Manage program events like Accelerator Kickoff, Demo Day, speaker events, treks to companies, and social events
• Gather and analyze data of previous cohorts including details on investment rounds post Demo Day and key statistics of companies.
• Collect feedback on the program before, during and after the program. Analyze feedback and suggest improvements.

What We’re Looking For

You’re a project management guru and skilled multitasker who’s detail-oriented without losing the bigger picture. You have strong written and verbal communication skills and you thrive in a fast-paced, highly collaborative environment. You are self-directed and can hit the ground running on Day 1.

Our ideal candidate has worked in a startup environment and is interested in gaining experience in marketing, operations, project management, community building, business development, event planning, and fundraising. You must have a Bachelor’s degree and be passionate about working with ambitious founders and early-stage startups, and a good sense of humor is always appreciated. 

Requirements aside, as long as you think you can be successful in this role and would find it exciting, we would be happy to consider you as a candidate. From our years of investing, we know that VC is often a game of exceptions.

Apply Here

We also love referrals, please send them our way. We take confidentiality very seriously. As a venture fund, our reputation is our currency.

We deeply understand the value of bringing together a team with different perspectives, educational backgrounds, and life experiences, and we prioritize diversity within our team. We encourage people from underrepresented backgrounds to apply.

Pear’s Visiting Partner program is for experienced founders and operators seeking to learn the full toolkit of early-stage VC through sourcing, diligence, and advising. 

This is a 6 month commitment, either part-time or full-time, with an opportunity to become an investment partner at Pear. Out of the past four Pear Visiting Partners, two have joined Pear full-time as investment partners, one continues to work with us part-time, and one is launching their own fund.  

In order to cultivate a more inclusive venture ecosystem, it’s important that funds like us continue to post open roles publicly. We are committed to building a diverse team internally, across our portfolio, and within the other Pear programs.

Pear partners with founders early to build indispensable, lasting companies

Pear VC is a leading early stage fund based in Palo Alto and San Francisco. We’ve partnered at the seed stage with world changing startups now worth over $100 billion, including Doordash, Gusto, Branch, Vanta, and Guardant Health.

Having founded and sold eight companies ourselves, we understand the challenges of building a company. We are founders’ thought partners as they iterate on the path towards product market fit. Along the way, we strive to ground founders in the hard truths, and to pull them out of the lows. 

Visiting Partner Role

As a Visiting Partner, you will work with other Pear investors and early-stage founders to build indispensable, lasting companies through working with our current portfolio, as well as leading and executing on new investments. We are looking for a 6 month or more commitment, either part time or full time, with an opportunity to become an investment partner at Pear.

Responsibilities include:

• Learn the investment process end to end from sourcing, evaluating, and selecting investment opportunities, including our next batch of Pear Winter Accelerator companies and seed investments. 
• Advocate for new investments in partner investment meetings and participate in team discussions on new investment opportunities broadly.
• Bring creativity and innovation to the Pear programs from innovating on Accelerator to helping Pear be the best partner to startups
• Serve as a thought partner and advisor to Accelerator startups over the course of the accelerator and participate in weekly check-ins with Accelerator companies to address various aspects of company building (fundraising, GTM, hiring, product-market fit, demo-day prep, etc.)
• Develop and build broader relationships across the startup ecosystem including VCs, founders, partnerships and potential talent for recruiting

Pear Accelerator 

The Pear Accelerator is a three-month long bootcamp culminating in a demo day to thousands of top investors. It includes a tailored curriculum and program across finding product-market fit, hiring your first employees, closing your first customers, fundraising your Series A and beyond. Pear Accelerator has been the birthplace of category-defining companies Affinity, Xilis, Capella Space, Nova Credit, Cardless, Viz.ai, and more in our ever-growing Pear family. This winter, for the first time, we are offering teams an investment of $500k at a $10M valuation cap. 

Providing founders personal, hands-on help is our first priority. We intentionally accept a small cohort to foster a tight community, allowing our partners to spend quality time with each Accelerator team. 

What We’re Looking For

You’re aligned with Pear’s investment approach and are looking forward to working closely with early-stage teams. We are looking for a combination of grit, resourcefulness, experience, deep subject knowledge, and a genuine passion for helping founders go from idea to IPO.

Our ideal candidate is a former founder and someone who can provide first-hand experience and advice to our Accelerator teams. You’re not afraid to get your hands dirty, but you also have the knowledge and wisdom to be a thought partner to our companies. 

As long as you think you can be successful in this role, we would be happy to consider you as a candidate. From our years of investing, we know that VC is often a game of exceptions.

Apply Here

We also love referrals, please send them our way. We take confidentiality very seriously. As a venture fund, our reputation is our currency.

Pear’s new CFO Anna Nitschke is laying down the foundations for our expansion in being the best partner for founders from idea to series A. 

Our journey to finding the perfect partner for Pear was deliberate and extensive, as we screened over 380 candidates. When we met Anna, we knew she was the right partner. Anna exudes the Pear DNA: smart, ambitious, humble, and a team player with a wealth of experience!

Anna will manage all financial functions and internal operations of the firm and its funds, spanning across fundraising, fund finance strategy, portfolio monitoring and more. She will also provide essential support to our companies and make valuable connections to our partners and resources. Pear’s portfolio over the past 8 years has grown to be worth over $90B and with Anna, we are excited about the future of Pear more than ever. 

Prior to Pear, Anna led finance & operations at Eniac Ventures. Before entering the venture capital world, Anna worked in business operations for over a decade at various startups, using her broad background in finance, human resources, and administration management to help companies scale.

In 2004, Anna moved from Europe to California for college and she graduated from University of California Santa Cruz with a BA in Business Management Economics. She is an active member of various Bay Area and NYC venture finance groups and a volunteer mentor with several organizations. In her free time, you can find Anna cycling or hiking with her husband, daughter, and crazy corgi (a Pear Corgi now!). In the evenings and on weekends, Anna turns to her passion for food and wine and is either trying out a new recipe, exploring restaurants and wineries, or throwing dinner parties for family and friends.

Vivien is a Principal on Pear’s investment team. At Pear, Vivien invests in founders who are mission-driven and who hope to improve the world we live in with technology. She brings her love for building communities through launching Pear’s Founder Circles starting with female technical founders. 

She joined Pear full time after getting her MBA from The Wharton School, where she studied Entrepreneurship and Innovation and Healthcare Management. She learned the ropes of venture capital as a Pear Fellow at Penn’s campus for two years. During her MBA, she interviewed healthtech leaders as the co-host of The Pulse Podcast by Wharton Digital Health and lead Community and Social for 600+ Wharton Entrepreneurship Club members.

Prior to business school, Vivien worked on BizOps, New Products and Growth for Airbnb, and was a consultant at The Boston Consulting Group focused on defining innovation and growth strategies for leading healthcare, consumer and technology companies. She received a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering at Northwestern University.

“Pear is where all brilliant founders should go when they have a passion to solve a problem, an MVP and are in between the 0 to 1 stage. The team works tirelessly together to support the founder through both the greatest and most challenging times.

I wanted to join and learn from a team that puts founders first and supports one another like a family.”

Outside of work, Vivien loves spending time in the outdoors, skiing on fresh powder, cycling through California’s hills, cooking Taiwanese food, and admiring art in all forms.

Connect with Vivien on Twitter @vivho or come say hi in our San Francisco office! 

Richard joins Pear as Chief of Staff to our managing partner, Mar Hershenson, and Director of Pear Accelerator. In his role, Richard is responsible for planning and operating the accelerator program, helping our portfolio companies with business development, fundraising, operations, and supporting Mar’s overall daily workflow.

“I joined pear because of the alignment and heavy double-down on community organizing. I am excited to be working with passionate and ambitious early-stage founders with big ideas!”

Prior to Pear, Richard fell in love with the venture world during an internship with Pillar VC. He completed his PhD at MIT Mathematics under Prof. Gilbert Strang, where he focused on the physical modeling of microfluidics. During his PhD, he also worked with Massachusetts General Hospital on using efficient ML algorithms to optimize hospital operations and has published in high-impact journals such as Nature.

Outside of work, Richard is a community organizer at heart who cares deeply about the mental health and well-being of students and entrepreneurs. Together with six MIT grad students and postdocs, Richard co-founded FAIL!, a nonprofit aimed to de-stigmatize failures and foster psychological safety in hyper-competitive workplaces. 

Say “hello” to Richard on Twitter @richardczhang.