Pear wants to empower up-and-coming VCs with its new emerging managers in residence program

When seed-focused Pear VC raised a $432 million fund last year, the firm co-founder Pejman Nozad said that it meant his firm had reached its “own product-market-fit.” That fourth fund was nearly three times larger than its previous $160 million fund.

The eleven-year-old firm wants to help emerging venture funds follow in Pear’s footsteps. On Wednesday, Pear announced the Pear Emerging Manager in Residence, a program that brings three up-and-coming pre-seed and seed venture funds into Pear’s offices for collaboration, such as deal flow sharing and due diligence. 

Pear will also write a $250,000 check to invest in these managers’ funds, facilitate LP introductions and grant them early access to companies in Pear’s accelerator. The latter is a privilege typically reserved for partners at top firms like NEA, Lux Capital, and Sequoia Capital.

The firm’s emerging manager program was conceived by Pear partner, Kathleen Estreich, who previously ran her own emerging firm, MKT1 Capital. Instead of raising her second fund, which would have been a very difficult endeavor in this funding environment, Estreich joined Pear a few months ago.

Prior to joining, Estreich spoke to Pear’s founders, Pejman Nozad and Mar Hershenson, about the importance of operators-turned-fund managers in the VC ecosystem. Estreich’s idea resonated with Nozad and Hershenson. And the idea of a residency program, run by Estreich, was born.

“We picked three emerging managers and gave them full access to what we do,” Nozad said. “We invested in their funds. They see our deal flow and how we evaluate deals. We give them an office, and we help them fundraise.”

To be sure, Pear is not the only VC firm that engages with emerging managers. Firms like Bain Capital Ventures have a dedicated fund-of-funds for investing in new venture funds.

Unlike BCV, Pear is investing directly out of its latest fund, Estreich told TechCrunch. “We’re making them almost an extension of Pear,” she said, “I also think seeing what the next stages of a venture fund looks like will help them get there faster.”

Pear’s emerging manager program’s inaugural members include Sarah Smith of the Sarah Smith Fund, John Gleeson at Success Venture Partners, and David Ongo Ongchoco and Adarsh Bhatt of Comma Capital.   

Estreich said these funds were chosen for their unique value-add to the early-stage ecosystem. For instance, Gleeson runs the biggest customer success meetup in the country; Comma Capital has a strong community of mid-career engineers at top tech companies, and Pear could learn from Smith about her unique approach to engaging with founders.

Estreich said that the Pear Emerging Manager in Residence will run for a year and will welcome three new VCs into its offices in about 12 months.