Podcasts about pear vc

This episode is part of Pear VC's series on Medicaid, covering the basics that founders need to know to build innovations that support communities in need. This week, we're excited to get to know Cesar Herrera. Cesar is the co-founder and CEO of Yuvo Health, a value-based care enablement organization for FQHCs. Yuvo Health is an industry-leading healthcare organization that partners with community health centers to help them gain an advantage in value-based care, a healthcare model that prioritizes patient-provided quality and outcomes of care over the quantity of services delivered.  Founded in New York City in January 2021 by a fully BIPOC team that has experienced the power of quality care firsthand, the entire company shares a common goal of bringing fair, quality care to underserved communities. Yuvo Health empowers health centers to succeed in value-based care arrangements by qualifying for meaningful value-based care contracts and achieving success in those arrangements with a dedicated Population Health partner — and with Yuvo Health taking on the risk in doing so.  Yuvo has raised $28M to date from  AlleyCorp, Mosaic General Partners, New York Ventures, HLM Venture Partners, Route 66 Ventures, VamosVentures, AV8 Ventures, Watershed, GreyMatter, Social Innovation Fund, and others Cesar's journey in healthcare spans over two decades, beginning with strategy and policy consulting at Kurt Salmon Associates, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Booz & Company. He also worked at Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, where he spearheaded marketing and competitive strategy initiatives. He then transitioned to Head of Existing Business at Zocdoc, and then Healthify, where he served as Chief Solutions Officer, shaping his vision for Yuvo Health. Cesar holds an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business, along with an MPH in Health Policy and Management from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

This episode is part of Pear VC's series on Medicaid, covering the basics that founders need to know to build innovations that support communities in need. Today, we're excited to get to know Afia Asamoah and Dr. Sanjay Basu. Afia is the Head of Legal and People and Sanjay is the Head of Clinical of Waymark, a value-based primary care enabler for Medicaid.   Founded in 2021, Waymark has raised $87M in funding to date from investors such as Lux Capital, CVS Health Ventures, Andreesen Horowitz and NEA. The company is pioneering in the healthcare space by offering tech-enabled, community-based services to Medicaid beneficiaries, ensuring they receive top-notch care and support. In this episode, we learn about Waymark's differentiated, research-backed, care model for Medicaid and a thoughtful approach to cost-effectiveness that is consistent with the interests of low-income patients.

Today, we're excited to get to know Dr. Muthu Alagappan, CEO and Founder of Counsel, the modern solution for access to care. Before founding Counsel, Muthu was the CMO of Notable Health for almost 4 years and was an Attending Physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and UCSF Medical Center. He graduated with his MD from Stanford Medicine and (fun fact!) was also the Student Commencement Speaker for his graduating class.Founded in 2023, Counsel provides patients with high-quality, personalized medical advice from expert doctors within minutes. Counsel recently announced $11M in seed funding from investors like A16z, Floodgate, Asymmetric Capital and Pear VC! We're proud to be partners to Counsel!

In this episode, Amir welcomes Matt Birnbaum, Partner at Pear VC, to discuss the intricacies of structuring equity in early-stage startups. They delve into factors that go into managing an option pool, the importance of setting aside the right amount of equity, and the nuanced calculations behind compensation packages. Matt shares insights from a blog article he authored, which provides a practical calculator to help founders plan equity distribution. They also explore common pitfalls, discuss the balance between attracting crucial hires and maintaining flexibility, and offer advice for having transparent equity conversations with early-stage employees. The episode aims to equip founders and potential candidates with tools and frameworks to make informed decisions about startup equity. Highlights: 02:15 Importance of Structuring Startup Equity 05:51 Equity Spend and Flexibility for Founders 09:45 Balancing Equity for Early Hires 14:19 Presenting Equity Offers to Candidates 20:43 Nuances in Equity Allocation Guest: Matt Birnbaum is Partner at Pear VC, where he focuses on investing in and guiding early-stage startups. With extensive experience in talent acquisition and leadership, Matt has previously led talent functions at companies like Instacart and Optimizely. He specializes in scaling teams and building effective hiring strategies for high-growth companies. At Pear VC, Matt leverages his background to support founders in assembling world-class teams that drive innovation and success. He is passionate about helping startups navigate the complexities of growth and talent development. LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/birnbing Blog article: https://pear.vc/how-to-structure-startup-equity-for-early-hires/ In this episode, Amir welcomes Matt Birnbaum, Partner at Pear VC, to discuss the intricacies of structuring equity in early-stage startups. They delve into factors that go into managing an option pool, the importance of setting aside the right amount of equity, and the nuanced calculations behind compensation packages. Matt shares insights from a blog article he authored, which provides a practical calculator to help founders plan equity distribution. They also explore common pitfalls, discuss the balance between attracting crucial hires and maintaining flexibility, and offer advice for having transparent equity conversations with early-stage employees. The episode aims to equip founders and potential candidates with tools and frameworks to make informed decisions about startup equity. Highlights: 02:15 Importance of Structuring Startup Equity 05:51 Equity Spend and Flexibility for Founders 09:45 Balancing Equity for Early Hires 14:19 Presenting Equity Offers to Candidates 20:43 Nuances in Equity Allocation Guest: Matt Birnbaum is Partner at Pear VC, where he focuses on investing in and guiding early-stage startups. With extensive experience in talent acquisition and leadership, Matt has previously led talent functions at companies like Instacart and Optimizely. He specializes in scaling teams and building effective hiring strategies for high-growth companies. At Pear VC, Matt leverages his background to support founders in assembling world-class teams that drive innovation and success. He is passionate about helping startups navigate the complexities of growth and talent development. LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/birnbing Blog article: https://pear.vc/how-to-structure-startup-equity-for-early-hires/

In this episode, Amir welcomes Matt Birnbaum, Partner at Pear VC, to discuss the intricacies of structuring equity in early-stage startups. They delve into factors that go into managing an option pool, the importance of setting aside the right amount of equity, and the nuanced calculations behind compensation packages. Matt shares insights from a blog article he authored, which provides a practical calculator to help founders plan equity distribution. They also explore common pitfalls, discuss the balance between attracting crucial hires and maintaining flexibility, and offer advice for having transparent equity conversations with early-stage employees. The episode aims to equip founders and potential candidates with tools and frameworks to make informed decisions about startup equity. Highlights: 02:15 Importance of Structuring Startup Equity 05:51 Equity Spend and Flexibility for Founders 09:45 Balancing Equity for Early Hires 14:19 Presenting Equity Offers to Candidates 20:43 Nuances in Equity Allocation Guest: Matt Birnbaum is Partner at Pear VC, where he focuses on investing in and guiding early-stage startups. With extensive experience in talent acquisition and leadership, Matt has previously led talent functions at companies like Instacart and Optimizely. He specializes in scaling teams and building effective hiring strategies for high-growth companies. At Pear VC, Matt leverages his background to support founders in assembling world-class teams that drive innovation and success. He is passionate about helping startups navigate the complexities of growth and talent development. LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/birnbing Blog article: https://pear.vc/how-to-structure-startup-equity-for-early-hires/ ----- Thank you so much for checking out this episode of The Talent Tango, and I would appreciate it if you would take a minute to rate and review us on your favorite podcast player. Want to learn more about us? Head over at https://www.elevano.com Have questions or want to cover specific topics with our future guests? Please message me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirbormand (Amir Bormand)

The Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 features entrepreneurs presenting their innovations to venture capitalists. The event occurs from October 28 to 30 in San Francisco, attracting numerous applicants. The first group of judges includes five venture capitalists: Erin from Pivotal Ventures, Eylul from Gradient Ventures, Victor from Benchmark, Ana from Pear VC, and Corinne from Greylock. These judges will assess startups and provide feedback based on company viability criteria. The winner of Startup Battlefield will receive a $100,000 equity-free prize.Learn more on this news visit us at: https://greyjournal.net/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is part of Pear VC's series on Medicaid, covering the basics that founders need to know to build innovations that support communities in need. Today, we're delighted to introduce Taylor Justice, the driving force behind Unite Us, a company that uses advanced technology solutions to coordinate community-focused social care and integrate social drivers of health into the healthcare continuum and regulatory landscape.   Unite Us developed the first closed-loop referral (CLR) platform that links social care service delivery with detailed outcomes to understand a person's total health journey. The platform streamlines collaboration among healthcare professionals, community organizations, health plans, and government agencies to provide real-time visibility into the community impact and actionable insights. Through active engagement and accountability, this model increases the efficiency of social care and improves the experience by removing the onus from the patient to navigate eligibility requirements for local services.   Founded in 2013, Unite Us has grown to more than 600 employees serving communities across the US. The company's investors include ICONIQ, Oak HC/FT, and more who are helping advance the company's mission to connect people to the care they need to improve their lives. Taylor started his career in the US Army. After serving in the infantry, he transitioned into an Account Executive role at CCS Medical. From there he became a sales engineer for JDSU which offers products and solutions for communications. After that, Taylor started his entrepreneurial journey co-founding the consulting firm, HigherEchelon, which helped organizations meet their performance goals. In 2013, he co-founded Unite Us and serves as President to this day. Taylor holds a BS in Latin American Studies and Environmental Engineering from West Point Academy and an MBA from Columbia Business School. In this episode, we explore Taylor's founding journey and how Unite Us's closed-loop referral process is improving care outcomes. We also discuss what it's like to be at the forefront of using social determinants of health data in Medicaid.

Ajay Kamat is a Partner at Pear VC, where he runs PearX, one of the top startup accelerators in the San Francisco Bay Area. Pear VC has been an early investor in many successful startup companies. In this episode, we talk about the PearX method of startup success, and how the team at PearX helps startup founders avoid common mistakes, find product-market fit, land their first hires, find venture capital funding, and quickly scale into successful unicorn companies. Later in the interview, we discuss Ajay's personal career background, his time as a founder, and how he became the head of PearX. Also, stick around to the end of the interview, because Ajay participates in the Next Unicorn Podcast bonus round!This is Next Unicorn Podcast episode 7. The video version of this episode is available on the Next Unicorn YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/SNbS7mTW2PE?si=fDJr7IxJ-PKEk3b5If you like this episode, I think you'd also like episode 5 (Are Startup Accelerators Worth It For Founders?), an interview with the former head of Techstars startup accelerator's San Francisco Bay Area location. The YouTube version of that episode is available at: https://youtu.be/sGBS8w0iLv0?si=8pb0dzPJqVeBZXPAFollow Ajay Kamat:

This episode is part of Pear VC's series on Medicaid, covering the basics that founders need to know to build innovations that support communities in need. Today, we're delighted to introduce Tracy Douglas, the CEO of Virginia Community Healthcare Association (VCHA), which is the primary care association representing Virginia's Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) .  Tracy brings over 25 years of healthcare administration and operations experience. She has held executive roles in FQHCs in Indiana and Maryland, overseeing multiple locations across both states. In these roles, she led operations, maintained financial strength, and supported strategic goals to achieve excellence in medical practices, programs, and services. Tracy has  managed operations in various healthcare settings, including pediatric centers of excellence, providing cardiac, kidney, and pulmonary services, both clinic-based and surgical. She also oversaw outpatient and inpatient acute care services and led a large health system's managed care division. Additionally, Tracy served as the Executive Director of a for-profit physician-hospital organization. In her current role, Tracy  is responsible for the overall operation, management, program development, and fiscal control of VCHA. She also advocates for the Association's members with federal, state, and local policymakers to ensure they have the tools and resources needed to improve access to primary care for the underserved in Virginia. Tracy received her bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland, College Park, and her master's degree in General Administration with a focus on Healthcare Administration from the University of Maryland University College. In this episode, we learn about the scope of FQHC services, how FQHCs are financed, what challenges they face and how they evaluate vendors.

Pejman Nozad of Pear VC joins Nick to discuss How a Sports Journalist, Car Washer, and Rug Salesman Built a Tier 1 VC Firm . In this episode we cover: Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital, and Building a Firm for Generations Entrepreneur Mindset, Sales Skills, and Storytelling Investing in Startups, Pro Rata, and Valuation Evaluating Startup Potential, Including Market Size and Founder Quality Investing, Exit Strategies, and Building Relationships with Founders Guest Links: LinkedIn X Pear VC The hosts of The Full Ratchet are Nick Moran and Nate Pierotti of New Stack Ventures, a venture capital firm committed to investing in founders outside of the Bay Area. Want to keep up to date with The Full Ratchet? Follow us on social. You can learn more about New Stack Ventures by visiting our LinkedIn and Twitter. Are you a founder looking for your next investor? Visit our free tool VC-Rank and we'll send a list of potential investors right to your inbox!

Our guest Vivien Ho, a dynamic partner at Pear VC, a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage healthcare and life sciences companies. Vivien leads Pear's Healthcare practice, dedicating her expertise to human and planet health. She has founded the Pear's Female Technical Founders Circle and co-hosts the Healthcare Playbook Podcast. Vivien's achievement lies in her instrumental role in guiding Pear VC's investments in groundbreaking healthcare startups, shaping the future of healthcare technology. She brings a unique perspective to the table, combining her background in engineering with a deep understanding of healthcare dynamics. Vivien's impact and contributions to the industry are not just about funding; they're about fostering innovation and supporting entrepreneurs in turning their visionary ideas into reality. In our discussion today, we'll explore Vivien's journey, the challenges of investing in healthcare technology, and insights into the future of this vibrant sector. Do you have any thoughts or guest suggestions? Please email us at hello@rosenmaninstitute.org.  

Join us on the latest episode, hosted by Jared S. Taylor! Our Guest: Vivien Ho, Partner at Pear VC.What you'll get out of this episode:Vivien Ho's Professional Journey: Vivien Ho, a partner at PearVC, shares her journey from healthcare enthusiasm to venture capital, highlighting her experiences in various sectors.PearVC's Approach to Funding: PearVC's focus on pre-seed and seed funding in healthcare, along with their hands-on approach with startup founders, reflects a deep commitment to fostering innovative solutions.Investment Criteria and Founders' Significance: Vivien emphasizes the importance of solving high-priority healthcare problems and working with multi-disciplinary teams for successful venture investments.The Emergence of AI in Healthcare: Current trends and future predictions in healthcare technology, particularly AI and digital health, are discussed, underlining their potential to revolutionize healthcare.Guidance for Startup Founders: Vivien's advice for startup founders includes understanding venture capital dynamics and recognizing that investor rejections are part of the journey, not an end to their business aspirations.To learn more about Pear VC:Website: https://pear.vc/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pear-vc/Guest's Socials:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vivienlho/Our sponsors for this episode are:Sage Growth Partners https://www.sage-growth.com/Quantum Health https://www.quantum-health.com/Show and Host's Socials:Slice of HealthcareLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sliceofhealthcare/Jared S TaylorLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaredstaylor/WHAT IS SLICE OF HEALTHCARE?The go-to site for digital health executive/provider interviews, technology updates, and industry news. Listed to in 65+ countries.

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Denzil Eden, founder & CEO of Smarty, an AI-powered productivity assistant. With degrees in computer science & AI from MIT & an MBA from Harvard, Denzil has been at the frontier of harnessing AI's potential to transform work. She has held roles in engineering & product management and is now the founder & CEO of Smarty. The pair discuss her founder journey as a solo technical female, how to provide advice for startups navigating economic uncertainty, insights on how she sees AI continuing to shape the future of work over the next decade, & practical tips for founders & professionals to help them start implementing today to enhance productivity. KEY TAKEAWAYS I started coding at 8 years old & fell in love with building. That passion stayed with me & I enrolled at MIT where my passion thrived. I got a degree in computer science & did a Masters in human computer interactions building an app like Slack for classrooms. I thought that being a founder wasn't for me, that I wanted more stability & I'm not sure where that mindset came from. I explored a lot of different careers & eventually went to business school to round out my education, while there the idea for Smarty came to me. This is the time to develop your AI literacy, to play around with AI tools, to understand how they think, work & how they can make your life better, how they can augment the work that you're doing. We're in such an early period of what technologies & tools are going to come out with AI, but the faster you start immersing yourself in that world the sooner you'll be able to understand how to prompt/talk to/leverage an AI tool. There's a lot that goes into responsible & ethical AI, we should be attributing where the data is coming from for these AI tools, the original artists should get credit, there should be some sort of system to track  who was the original creator of a piece of work. On the other side, a lot of artists are standing on the shoulders of giants that came before them in terms of being inspired by things that came before & trying to create something new from that. I think AI tools can help speed up that process of experimenting with their own work. I've learned so much over my founders path & specifically about being a woman in AI, because AI is so based on previous data it's been fed, it's really important to provide AI tools with diverse sources of data. What I'm seeing right now in the AI space is there are no female speakers at events. Not just gender, but source of information need to be diverse in race, culture, socio-economic class, diversity is fundamental to the way AI works. BEST MOMENTS ‘I was overwhelmed in most areas of my life & I realised that the majority of the things I was doing & had on my plate could be easily automated with existing technology, so I started building Smarty for myself.' ‘I use the same pitch I started with in 2018, but the appetite for the pitch is so different today. It shows you that timing is everything. Don't be dissuaded, have internal drive over external validation.' ‘I think AI is going to be a transformational tool in every industry, every job from tech to farming to music. It's such a magical time & I'm very excited to be part of that movement.' ‘You don't have to understand the ‘black box' of an AI tool & how it works, you just have to learn how to use it & in 5-10 years' time you'll be the expert.' ABOUT THE GUEST Denzil Eden is the founder & CEO of Smarty, an AI-powered productivity assistant that helps professionals plan their days & automate mundane tasks. A trailblazer as a solo female technical founder, Denzil earned degrees in computer science & AI from MIT before getting her MBA from Harvard. Denzil has an extensive background in technology and entrepreneurship. She started coding at age eight & has worked as a software engineer, product manager, & now founder and CEO.  Denzil has been at the forefront of harnessing AI to transform everyday work life for over 5 years through Smarty. Backed by Pear VC and other investors, Smarty has helped thousands achieve peak productivity by creating structured routines, automating administrative tasks, & maximizing time efficiency. When she's not using technology to make people's lives easier, you can find Denzil playing piano, writing sci-fi stories, or searching for the perfect cup of tea. ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers & accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.  Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website

On this episode of Okay, Computer. Dan Nathan is joined by Trevor Marshall, CTO of Current, to discuss a wide-range of headlines dominating the tech/fintech markets this week. They discuss Capital One's plan to acquire Discover Financial (3:00), Crypto (15:00), and AI winners/losers (23:00).  After the break, Dan is joined by Ethan Agarwal, co-founder and CEO of The Coterie, and Ajay Kamat, partner at Pear VC, for the latest installment of the Funders x Founders series. They discuss their background, creating companies to solve problems, what The Coterie does, how the Silicon Valley Bank debacle impacted their business, the Funder x Founder relationship and current macroeconomic environment. Checkout Kara's Book -- View our show notes here Learn more about Current: current.com Listen to 'Strategic Alternatives': https://www.rbccm.com/en/gib/ma-inflection-points Email us at contact@riskreversal.com with any feedback, suggestions, or questions for us to answer on the pod and follow us @OkayComputerPod. We're on social: Follow @dee_bosa on Twitter Follow @GuyAdami on Twitter Follow us on Instagram @RiskReversalMedia Subscribe to our YouTube page

On this episode of Okay, Computer. Dan Nathan is joined by Trevor Marshall, CTO of Current, to discuss a wide-range of headlines dominating the tech/fintech markets this week. They discuss Capital One's plan to acquire Discover Financial (3:00), Crypto (15:00), and AI winners/losers (23:00).  After the break, Dan is joined by Ethan Agarwal, co-founder and CEO of The Coterie, and Ajay Kamat, partner at Pear VC, for the latest installment of the Funders x Founders series. They discuss their background, creating companies to solve problems, what The Coterie does, how the Silicon Valley Bank debacle impacted their business, the Funder x Founder relationship and current macroeconomic environment. Checkout Kara's Book -- View our show notes here Learn more about Current: current.com Listen to 'Strategic Alternatives': https://www.rbccm.com/en/gib/ma-inflection-points Email us at contact@riskreversal.com with any feedback, suggestions, or questions for us to answer on the pod and follow us @OkayComputerPod. We're on social: Follow @dee_bosa on Twitter Follow @GuyAdami on Twitter Follow us on Instagram @RiskReversalMedia Subscribe to our YouTube page

I chat with Kevin Lee, Founder of immi, discussing everything from healthy ramen to productivity in both business and personal life. We delve deep in Kevin's journey of creating a low carb, high protein ramen, addressing health concerns within Asian communities, and personal productivity processes. GUEST Kevin Lee is a co-founder of immi, which invented the world's first low carb, high protein, and 100% plant based instant ramen. He previously led better-for-you food & beverage investing at Pear VC and is an angel investor in 40+ companies. He grew up working alongside his grandparents on their produce farms in Taiwan. Follow Kevin on ⁠Twitter⁠ Check out immi HOST Watch on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Michael's newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Michael⁠⁠⁠ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Introduction 05:25 - Asian Culture and Nutrition 17:55 - Company OS 33:57 - Personal OS 44:44 - Life Dinner Concept 50:14 - Coffee Sobriety

Collin Wallace is the Former Head of Techstars Silicon Valley (one of the top startup accelerators), co-teaches the Startup Garage accelerator class at the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), and is a partner at Lobby Capital (formerly August Capital), a Silicon Valley venture capital firm. Previously, as a repeat founder, he also was a participant in Techstars and Y Combinator (YC is, of course, also a top startup accelerator). One of the startups that he founded (FanGo) was acquired by Grubhub pre-IPO, where he became Head of Innovation. In this interview, we talk about startup accelerators, how they've changed, and whether they are worth it for founders. We also talk about how much equity startup accelerators take, the amount of funding they provide, and some details regarding SAFEs and other startup accelerator financing terms, as well as differences between startup accelerators. We also talk about the types of problems startup accelerators are especially good at helping founders solve. In addition, we discuss the differences between accelerators: Y Combinator vs Techstars vs Pear VC, etc. Collin has invested in over 80 early-stage companies, including PayJoy, Landed, Mosaic Voice, Postscript, and Vellum. He has a BS from Georgia Tech, and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In addition, he speaks Mandarin Chinese.

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape.This week we are thrilled to be joined by Pejman Nozad, Co-Founder and GP of Pear VC. Founded in 2013, Pear has scaled to over $800MM in AUM with a powerful engine to help early-stage companies. As many regular listeners of the show know, we often like to highlight managers who have different backgrounds and stories leading to their careers in VC. I think of all of our guests, Pejman epitomizes how someone can overcome many obstacles to be successful in the industry as he not only immigrated from Iran with little to his name, but the catalyst that got him into VC was working at a rug store. We explore Pejman's incredible journey, Pear VC's emphasis on early-stage investments, and the need for innovation in venture capital.This is an inspiring story for anyone considering venture capital as a career path, and stresses the importance of resilience and overcoming challenges, as well as, the value of continuous learning.About Pejman Nozad:Pejman Nozad is the Co-Founder of Pear VC and he has made a substantial impact in the tech sector with strategic investments in companies like DoorDash, Dropbox, and many others. His success is recognized through his consistent inclusion in the Forbes Midas List since 2021 and leading the Forbes Midas Seed List in 2023.Pejman's path into venture capital was unconventional, starting from humble beginnings as an Iranian immigrant working in a Palo Alto rug store. He was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 2014.In this episode, we discuss:(2:55) Pejman shares his start in the US(15:06) The importance of believing in entrepreneurs with diverse backgrounds(20:37) Why the best seed funds consistently deliver high returns(22:17) How PearVC has evolved and why it has been so long-lasting(30:10) No job is beneath anyone at PearVC with its team-based approach(33:46) Qualities of successful people that go beyond the obvious(37:18) His transition from angel investor to venture capitalist and the challenges of portfolio construction(41:09) PearVC's focus on finding talent and reaching product-market fit regardless of the fund's size or stage-focus(44:59) His advice to new investors at PearVCI'd love to know what you took away from this conversation with Pejman. Follow me @SamirKaji and give me your insights and questions with the hashtag #ventureunlocked. If you'd like to be considered as a guest or have someone you'd like to hear from (GP or LP), drop me a direct message on Twitter.Podcast Production support provided by Agent Bee  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ventureunlocked.substack.com

"When you go out to raise...you have to think about if you have a story to tell...think like an investor. Why are you the best person to solve this?" Join Manasi Patwa and Cynthia Zhou as they chat with Vivien Ho, Partner at Pear VC (Wharton '21). Listen to dive into the world of early-stage investing, tips for founders and entrepreneurs, and insights on the tech sphere as it stands today.

Shubham Goel is the Co-foudner and Co-CEO of Affinity, a relationship intelligence platform for dealmakers. The company has raised over $120M in funding from Menlo Ventures, MassMutual Ventures, Pear VC and Advance Venture Partners. Prior to Affinity, Shubham completed his BS in Computer Science at Stanford University. . . . Episode notes: What made Shubham pick entrepreneurship (2:00) Propensity of risk increasing as the company grows (6:08) The journey until the ah-ha moment (10:06) The aha-moment (17:00) Unlocking the operator and leader persona as a founder (25:15) Getting the most out of your teams as a leader (31:10) Things that have surprised Shubham in the company building journey (37:15) What would Shubham do differently if he were to build Affinity from scratch today? (43:54) . . . Social links: Follow Shubham on Twitter Follow The Desi VC Podcast on Twitter Follow Akash Bhat on Twitter

Yury Selivanov is the Co-founder & CEO of EdgeDB, the open-source database designed as a successor to SQL and the relational paradigm. Their open source graph-relational database, edgeDB, has a built-in migration system and a next-generation query language. EdgeDB has raised $19M from investors including Accel, Nava Ventures, and Pear VC. In this episode, we discuss how they took a first principles approach to building a truly developer-first database (ie. building with postgres), the importance they put on having a short learning curve for their database, how they think about breaking through the noise of the many competitive developer-first databases that have launched in recent years, why all open source databases should use the cloud model to monetize & more! Go to edgedb.com to register for the upcoming EdgeDB 4.0 and Cloud launch!

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.Startup stories are often stuff of dreams — and today's podcast is a story about one of tech's most unlikely venture capitalists.Journalist and professional soccer player turned immigrant turned self-proclaimed "best carwasher in San Jose" turned Persian rug salesman turned top Silicon Valley seed investor Pejman Nozad, the Co-Founder & Founding Managing Partner of Pear VC comes on the show to chronicle his journey that has crossed continents to back many of tech's top companies. While his story has taken him many places, one thing has stayed constant — his ability to build relationships and connect with people. And that talent has enabled him to succeed in building a top seed fund in Pear with his partner and serial entrepreneur Mar Hershenson, where they have backed the likes of DoorDash, Gusto, Guardant Health, Aurora, and many more.Pejman shares everything from how to build relationships to how to build a seed fund.We discussed so many fascinating topics: What he looks for in founders. Why family is so important. How and why building relationships is so critical in early-stage investing. How Pear has built out a multitude of products and services for founders across pre-seed and seed. How companies can go from zero to product-market fit. Why some of the largest institutional LPs are interested in a dedicated pre-seed and seed strategy.  I also learned that he makes some really good Persian tea, which is apparently even better than Sadaf. It was a pleasure to have you on the show, Pejman, to share a story for the ages and one that is still being written.

In this episode, Ben sits down with Anand Iyer of Canonical Crypo. Anand founded Canonical after a successful career as a founder, angel investor, and venture partner at Lightspeed and Pear VC. At Canonical, Anand invests into core blockchain infrastructure, middleware, and developer tooling. His thoughts on the intersection of AI and blockchain are representative of how these two technologies need each other to maximize their value to the world. Let's get into it. Timestamps 3:16 Background and experiences? 6:20 How did you transition from angel investing to running a fund? 8:50 What's Canonical's thesis? 11:55 What's it like being a solo GP and how are you sourcing projects? 15:09 What does the underwriting process look like at the pre-seed stage? 18:23 What lessons and commonalities have you learned from investing at the earliest stage? 21:35 What should founders be prioritizing at different stages of their company's growth? 24:09 Does blockchain need AI and vice versa? 32:55 What needs to happen for AI to impact the end user in their own application use? 35:56 How important is decentralization to the growth and development of AI? 39:21 What are AI agents? 43:01 Why is ZK ML important? 44:44 Why is MPC important? 46:40 Why is fully homomorphic encryption important? 49:19 What makes projects like FrenTech so popular? 52:29 What is your spiciest take within crypto? 55:38 What is your spiciest take outside of crypto? 58:26 Where can people learn more about you? Resources Mentioned Ikigai DeFi Masterclass Daniel Kang Fighting AI Generated Audio Sarah Silverman Suing OpenAI and Meta for Copyright Infringment Flocki.io Gensyn Friend.Tech ZeroDev Connect with the guest Twitter Canonical Crypto Disclaimer  Ben Jacobs is a partner at Scenius Capital Management. All views expressed by Ben and the guests of this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Scenius Capital Management. Guests and the host may maintain positions in the assets or funds discussed in this podcast. You should not treat any opinion expressed by anyone on this podcast as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy but only as an expression of their personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

Our Social Media Pages, follow us and engage with the Pill-grim community!Join our Entre CommunityInstagramTwitter YouTubeTikTokLinkedInAnd now, for this week's prescription:On this week's dose, we have Harris Stolzenberg, CEO and Co-Founder of Flok, a comprehensive corporate retreat planner tailored to remote tech companies. Harris's entrepreneurial journey began after a brief experience in investment banking post his graduation from MIT. He then served as Chief of Staff at the innovative startup Pando, where he gained valuable insights into founding a company.Seeking a deeper understanding of venture capital, Harris joined Pear VC, immersing himself for a year before pursuing his original aspiration of starting his own business. Seizing an opportunity that arose during the pandemic, Harris and an old friend embarked on a venture to assist remote companies in organizing offsite retreats, eventually leading to the creation of Flok.In the interview, Harris elaborates on how Flok works and shares upcoming milestones. He also discusses his fundraising philosophy and his perspective on taking the company from being bootstrapped to becoming a venture-backed startup. Stick with us as he provides valuable advice for those interested in breaking into venture capital, and offers recommendations for noteworthy books, podcasts, and startups to watch out for.It was a pleasure to have Harris in the studio this week, and without further ado, let's dive into the interview!Sources:https://goflok.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/harris-stolzenberg-44468b78/Music Credit: Chapter One by Cole Bauer and Dean Keetonhttps://www.colebauer.com/https://www.instagram.com/deankeeton/?hl=enDisclosure:The views, statements, and opinions,  expressed herein by the hosts and guests are their own, and their appearance on the podcast should not be construed as reflecting the views or implied endorsement of Independent Brokerage Solutions LLC or any of its officers, employees, or agents. The statements made herein should not be considered an investment opinion, advice, or a recommendation regarding securities of any company. This podcast is produced solely for informational purposes and is not to be construed as an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy a security.

I couldn't help but spend the first few minutes of my conversation with Pejman Nozad fishing for the story of how a rug salesman built one of Silicon Valley's top institutional pre-seed and seed funds. Nozad has such a fascinating and inspirational story; it reflects what is possible when Silicon Valley is at its best. Nozad told me how Sequoia's Doug Leone gave him a shot. “We connected [as] both really good salespeople,” Nozad recalled. “I said Doug, ‘I can help you invest in some amazing founders.'”Leone said he would come to meet with Nozad. “I made my life mission that I'm ready,” Nozad remembers. They hit it off and the deal flow, well, it flowed.Nozad would later introduce Sequoia to Dropbox. Pear VC, which Nozad co-founded with Mar Hershenson, first raised $50 million in 2013. Nozad and I spent much of our conversation talking about the practicalities of a $432 million seed fund.For a firm that invests in pre-seed and seed round startups, the latest fund size is enormous, especially as we've been in a downturn outside of AI.With that fund size, Pear VC will need to find many more winners than in earlier funds to generate high multiples for its limited partners.“I wake up every morning and I think we're going to go out of business by the end of the day,” Nozad said. “So that's the mentality. It doesn't matter if you have $400 million or $4 million or $4 billion. I want to stay on my toes. DoorDash performance, or Guardant Health, that doesn't mean anything about Fund IV.”Find the Podcast Get full access to Newcomer at www.newcomer.co/subscribe

I couldn't help but spend the first few minutes of my conversation with Pejman Nozad fishing for the story of how a rug salesman built one of Silicon Valley's top institutional pre-seed and seed funds. Nozad has such a fascinating and inspirational story; it reflects what is possible when Silicon Valley is at its best. Nozad told me how Sequoia's Doug Leone gave him a shot. “We connected [as] both really good salespeople,” Nozad recalled. “I said Doug, ‘I can help you invest in some amazing founders.'”Leone said he would come to meet with Nozad. “I made my life mission that I'm ready,” Nozad remembers. They hit it off and the deal flow, well, it flowed.Nozad would later introduce Sequoia to Dropbox. Pear VC, which Nozad co-founded with Mar Hershenson, first raised $50 million in 2013. Nozad and I spent much of our conversation talking about the practicalities of a $432 million seed fund.For a firm that invests in pre-seed and seed round startups, the latest fund size is enormous, especially as we've been in a downturn outside of AI.With that fund size, Pear VC will need to find many more winners than in earlier funds to generate high multiples for its limited partners.“I wake up every morning and I think we're going to go out of business by the end of the day,” Nozad said. “So that's the mentality. It doesn't matter if you have $400 million or $4 million or $4 billion. I want to stay on my toes. DoorDash performance, or Guardant Health, that doesn't mean anything about Fund IV.”Find the Podcast Get full access to Newcomer at www.newcomer.co/subscribe

Mar Hershenson is Pear VC's Founding Managing Partner. Pear VC's portfolio includes DoorDash, Gusto, Affinity, among others. After earning a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, Mar co-founded three startups in mobile/e-commerce, enterprise software, and semiconductor industries and has registered 14 separate patents. She is currently a Lecturer at Stanford Univeristy, teaching Lean Launchpad, one of the premier entrepreneurship classes at Stanford. Mar serves on the board of trustees of Harvey Mudd College and the Advisory Board of the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at Carnegie Mellon University. She is a founder of Equity Summit, the premier conference for connecting URM Venture Capital GPs to LPs, and was an initial founding member of All Raise. She has been recognized by MIT Technology Review as a Top Innovator Under 35, named a Champion of Innovation by Fast Company, awarded the Digital Automation Conference's Marie R. Pistil Achievement Award, and recognized on the Forbes Midas List in 2021, 2022, and 2023.    You can learn more about:  How to start and run a successful VC fund  How to pitch top investors/ invest in the next generation of unicorn startups  How to keep pursuing your startup idea even when people tell you "no"    ===================== YouTube: @GraceGongCEO Newsletter: @SmartVenture LinkedIn: @GraceGong TikTok: @GraceGongCEO IG: @GraceGongCEO Twitter: @GraceGongGG =====================

Produced by Foundersuite (www.foundersuite.com), "How I Raised It" goes behind the scenes with startup founders and investors who have raised capital. This episode is with Ethan Agarwal of The Coterie (https://www.thecoterie.co/), a fintech company that builds financial products for high income people in tech and finance. In this episode we talk about the unique wealth management needs of founders and tech workers, what he's doing differently when it comes to raising capital as a repeat entrepreneur, tips for maintaining physical, mental, and financial health, and much more. The Coterie has raised nearly $50 million in capital from Andreessen Horowitz, Initialized, Pear VC and Google's Gradient Ventures, as well as DoorDash founder Stanley Tang and AngelList founder Naval Ravikant. How I Raised It is produced by Foundersuite, makers of software to raise capital and manage investor relations. Foundersuite's customers have raised over $9.7 Billion since 2016. Create a free account at www.foundersuite.com.

Arash Afrakhteh is a Partner at Pear VC, an industry agnostic early stage focused fund. Previously, Arash was the co-founder and CTO of Cariden.

Mar Hershenson has done it all. She's been a VP of product development and a co-founder of three successful startups.With 14 patents under her belt and a passion for teaching, Mar has joined us today to share her insights on:What it takes to succeed in the startup world, Experience as a managing partner at Pear VC to Her early bet on DoorDash, Thoughts on the role of academia in the startup ecosystem and much more.  You won't want to miss a word of this conversation.Hey, open your startup the right way, request early access to Meridian's international account, or start by signing up for our newsletter.Follow us on Linkedin / Twitter / Instagram / Podcast.

Now on his second startup, Santiago Molina's latest venture has raised tens of millions of dollars, to facilitate the movement of $90B in merchandise. His latest venture, FinKargo, has attracted funding from top-tier investors like Community Investment Management, ONEVC, Maya Capital, and Pear VC.

Mar Hershenson of Pear VC joins Nick to discuss Are Founders Born or Made?, What it Takes to Raise a Series A in 2023, and Weighing the Balance of Unit Economics vs Growth. In this episode we cover: Path to Pear and The Forbes Midas List Data on The DNA of Entrepreneurs Generative AI Hype Raising a Series A in 2023 & More! Missed a recent episode? Go to The Full Ratchet blog and catch up! The hosts of The Full Ratchet are Nick Moran and Nate Pierotti of New Stack Ventures, a venture capital firm committed to investing in founders outside of the Bay Area. You can follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter! Founders, are you frustrated by trying to find the ideal VC's for your stage, sector, and geography? Answer five questions with VC Rank and generate your customized list now.

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Pejman Nozad (@pejmannozad), the Co-Founder and Founding Managing Partner of Pear VC, a firm specializing in seed stage investments that partners with founders at the earliest stages to turn great ideas into category-defining companies. Over the past two decades, he has been a seed investor in some of the most iconic tech companies including Doordash, Dropbox, Applovin, Gusto, Guardant Health, Branch, Aurora Solar, Soundhound, CourseHero, and others.As an immigrant from Iran, Pejman did not take the typical path towards becoming a VC. After arriving in the U.S., he lived in an attic above a yogurt shop and then worked at a rug store in downtown Palo Alto. He immersed himself in the vanguard of technology and slowly, with a few small investments, developed a reputation for both identifying talent and taking promising ideas to the next level.Pejman lives in California with his wife, Mania, and their two children. He was included in the Forbes Midas List in 2021 and 2022 and ranked #1 in the U.S. (#2 in the world) on the Forbes Midas Seed List in 2022.Website: Pear VCLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/pejman/Twitter: @pejmannozadEmail: pejman@pear.vcShow Notes: Pejman's fascinating background and journey from Iranian soccer player to carwash and yogurt shop employee to rug salesman to investor Where Pejman derives his impressive work ethic What compelled Pejman to capitalize on the opportunity to transition from rug salesman to venture capitalist What makes a great sales person How Pejman was able to break into the industry and establish himself as a great investor and partner Fostering authentic connection in an over-networked society Building Pear as an institution to serve founders at the earliest stages Taking 4 years to convince Mar Hershenson to partner with him and start a fund together The process of raising their first fund while building community at Stanford What differentiates Pear Pear's model and building their platform Pejman's big vision for Pear What they look for in founders at Pear Why he prefers to get to know founders in person before investing in them What drives Pejman today What makes Pear a great partner More about the show:The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. More about us:Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.The Vitalize Team:Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVCCaroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

In this episode, we talk to Justine about what led her to a career in finance, first at Goldman Sachs then in VC. She further dives into the secondary team at Industry Ventures and how she approached the decision of what stage to invest in. Finally, Justine touches on how the sheer availability of female mentors in itself is a sign that things are changing in the industry, albeit slowly, and discusses the work yet to be done and some advice for aspiring female investors. 

Welcome to an episode with a veteran Silicon Valley dealmaker, Touraj Parang. Get Touraj's book here: https://amzn.to/3bmsDGj In this episode, Touraj takes us through his unique, decades-long experiences as an entrepreneur and investor. He shares the lessons he learned when he sold his first startup – with no exit plan – for pennies on the dollar. It was then followed by great success with his next startup as he applied his learnings and prioritized executing an exit strategy. Touraj discussed the key things to consider and the red flags to avoid when selecting investors and co-founders.  Touraj Parang is a seasoned entrepreneur, investor, advisor, and M&A expert who has sat in every seat around the table, structuring and negotiating strategic transactions since the late 1990s, including as a corporate attorney at legal powerhouses WSGR and O'Melveny & Myers. Touraj has been a founder, executive, and trusted advisor to several fast-growing technology startups with exits to LinkedIn, Instacart, Vistaprint, Postmates, and Amplify, among others. He has also spent nearly a decade on the acquirer side of M&A deals as a corporate development executive at Webs and GoDaddy. Exit Path draws on Touraj's unique, decades-long experience involving hundreds of M&A transactions, strategic partnerships, and venture capital investments totaling billions of dollars in aggregate value. He is currently the President and Chief Operating Officer at Serve Robotics, a startup shaping the future of sustainable, self-driving delivery that he helped spin out of Uber, and an Operating Advisor at Pear VC, an early-stage venture capital firm, where he enjoys collaborating with and providing strategic guidance to mission-driven entrepreneurs. He earned his JD from Yale Law School and his BA in Philosophy and Economics from Stanford University. Get Touraj's book here:  Exit Path: How to Win the Startup End Game. Touraj Parang. https://amzn.to/3bmsDGj Enjoying our podcast? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

In this episode, Vivien talks about her venture path, her passion for healthcare and the podcast she hosts, interviewing & learning from entrepreneurs in the sector. She further talks about leading Pear's Female Founder Circle which is providing a platform for female technical founders and shares the aspiration of bringing these founders to the funding table, technical assistance or simply a community of like minded gamechangers. 

On this episode of the Startup of the Year Podcast, we hear from Touraj Parang, the President and COO at Serve Robotics and an Operating Advisor at Pear VC. Previously, he built and sold his own company Jaxtr, and helped with the acquisition of webs.com to Vistaprint. He also spent time as an acquirer at GoDaddy where he acquired dozens of businesses.    Touraj is also the author of the book “Exit Path: How to Win the Startup End Game,” which provides a lot of lessons that he has learned about startup acquisitions from his experience working in Silicon Valley since the late 90's. The book was just released this August and you can pick up your copy today at: exitpath.net    We also have a quick request…please vote for panels on the SXSW PanelPicker! This year, we've introduced a panel that we believe attendees will find valuable and informative during their entrepreneurial journeys at SXSW 2023. Voting is currently open and ends on Aug 21st! You can find more info about that panel and vote today at: bit.ly/estsx23    We also again highlight one of the startups from our community and that company is RootLo, which is a mobile application helping companies and employees to successfully navigate the structural shift in where work is done.  Today, RootLo App is a virtual water cooler for 15 companies across 30 cities - creating a space for remote employees to collaborate and build culture. Learn more about them at https://rootlo.com/   Lastly, we invite you all to join our community today to access the support, expert advice, and resources you need to elevate your startup by going to: www.est.us/join     Thank you for listening, and as always, please check out the Established website and subscribe to the newsletter at www.est.us   Checkout Startup of the Year at www.startupofyear.com   Subscribe to the Startup of the Year Daily Deal Flow: www.startupofyear.com/daily-dealflow   Subscribe to the Startup of the Year podcast: www.podcast.startupofyear.com   Subscribe to the Established YouTube Channel: soty.link/ESTYouTube   *** Startup of the Year helps diverse, emerging startups, founding teams, and entrepreneurs push their company to the next level. We are a competition, a global community, and a resource.     Startup of the Year is also a year-long program that searches the country for a geographically diverse set of startups from all backgrounds and pulls them together to compete for the title of Startup of the Year.    The program includes a number of in-person and virtual events, including our annual South By Southwest startup pitch event and competition. All of which culminate at our annual Startup of the Year Summit, where the Startup of the Year winner is announced, along with an opportunity at a potential investment.   Established is a consultancy focused on helping organizations with innovation, startup, and communication strategies. It is the power behind Startup of the Year.  Created by the talent responsible for building the Tech.Co brand (acquired by an international publishing company), we are leveraging decades of experience to help our collaborators best further (or create) their brand & accomplish their most important goals.  Connect with us on Twitter - @EstablishedUs and Facebook - facebook.com/established.us

@touraj is a seasoned entrepreneur and investor, COO of Serve Robotics, and an Operating Advisor at Pear VC.  His book, Exit Path - How to Win the Startup End Game, helps entrepreneurs at every stage of their startup lifecycle.  OUT NOW!

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 265, an episode with a veteran Silicon Valley dealmaker, Touraj Parang. Get Touraj's book here: https://amzn.to/3bmsDGj In this episode, Touraj takes us through his unique, decades-long experiences as an entrepreneur and investor. He shares the lessons he learned when he sold his first startup – with no exit plan – for pennies on the dollar. It was then followed by great success with his next startup as he applied his learnings and prioritized executing an exit strategy. Touraj discussed the key things to consider and the red flags to avoid when selecting investors and co-founders.  Touraj Parang is a seasoned entrepreneur, investor, advisor, and M&A expert who has sat in every seat around the table, structuring and negotiating strategic transactions since the late 1990s, including as a corporate attorney at legal powerhouses WSGR and O'Melveny & Myers. Touraj has been a founder, executive, and trusted advisor to several fast-growing technology startups with exits to LinkedIn, Instacart, Vistaprint, Postmates, and Amplify, among others. He has also spent nearly a decade on the acquirer side of M&A deals as a corporate development executive at Webs and GoDaddy. Exit Path draws on Touraj's unique, decades-long experience involving hundreds of M&A transactions, strategic partnerships, and venture capital investments totaling billions of dollars in aggregate value. He is currently the President and Chief Operating Officer at Serve Robotics, a startup shaping the future of sustainable, self-driving delivery that he helped spin out of Uber, and an Operating Advisor at Pear VC, an early-stage venture capital firm, where he enjoys collaborating with and providing strategic guidance to mission-driven entrepreneurs. He earned his JD from Yale Law School and his BA in Philosophy and Economics from Stanford University. Get Touraj's book here:  Exit Path: How to Win the Startup End Game. Touraj Parang. https://amzn.to/3bmsDGj Enjoying our podcast? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world's leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now. In this episode, Andrew is joined by Touraj Parang, author of Exit Path: How to Win the Startup End Game. Touraj Parang is the Chief Operating Officer at Serve Robotics, an innovative robotic delivery startup in Silicon Valley, and an Operating Partner at Pear VC, a top-tier early-stage venture capital firm. As Vice President of Corporate and Business Development at GoDaddy, he led M&A and strategic partnerships for several business units. Parang has founded and sold several startups and has participated in evaluation, negotiation, and execution of hundreds of M&A, strategic partnership, and venture financing transactions valued at more than $5 billion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Creating blueprints or playbooks for founders is one of VCs' numerous responsibilities regarding talent. Operationalizing assists you learn how to support several companies simultaneously. Therefore, rather than spending five to ten hours with a founder, you spend thirty to sixty minutes with a playbook or blueprint. Finding and hiring the most qualified candidates for a position does not adhere to a "one size fits all" model. Early-stage businesses need VCs that can rapidly examine their existing conditions and key obstacles and then use this knowledge to develop a strategy that matches their specific needs.

For this week's episode of Crossing Borders, we're revisiting one of our greatest hits episodes featuring Gonzalo Blanco, Co-founder of Quansa.For years, Gonzalo Blanco and Mafalda Barros have seen how the misaligned incentives in Latin American financial products push the average person to make bad financial decisions. Due to this lack of guidance, people improvise and spend money without realizing the impact that their decisions have on their financial health. This frustration with the lack of financial education led them to found Quansa, a corporate benefits platform focused on employee financial wellbeing. We invested in Quansa's last round and are excited to support them on their mission to promote employee financial health throughout the region.In this episode, I sat down with Gonzalo to talk about why the incentives in Latin American financial products are broken and how Quansa aims to change that. Gonzalo also shares his lessons learned from working in the corporate world, participating in Pear.vc's accelerator, and going through the fundraising process in the US and Latin America.Pushing for employee financial health with no hidden agendaLatin Americans historically don't trust financial institutions. Banks and financial institutions push products on their clients, and many make bad decisions. However, through Quansa's digital diagnostic and personal financial coach, clients have transparency and can easily understand the impact of their decisions. Learn more about how employees can incorporate healthy financial habits with Quansa in this episode of Crossing Borders.Transitioning from 10 years in the corporate worldGonzalo explains that there is no perfect recipe for a person's decision to transition from the corporate world into entrepreneurship. For him, it was a matter of understanding the opportunities that would be available to him if he decided to continue working for a corporation. It was important for him to learn about company processes from larger organizations that had perfected them over time, but for the next step in his career, he wanted to be able to work with more speed and fewer limitations. Listen to this episode of Crossing Borders to learn more about the lessons Gonzalo learned from working for a corporation.From Stanford's GSB to the Pear Accelerator 2020The idea for Quansa originated in Stanford's Graduate School of Business when Gonzalo was taking a class called Startup Garage, part of his Master's program. Gonzalo and Mafalda were focusing on solving for financial health in Latin America. At that moment, they met Mar Hershenson from Pear VC who invited them to participate in Pear's Accelerator. It opened a world of opportunities for them.Check out this episode of Crossing Borders to learn more about how they attracted investors from the US and Latin America. Gonzalo Blanco is providing a financial solution to the Latin American market that has employees' best interests in mind with Quansa. With Mafalda, they are striving to change the way Latin Americans spend their money, putting their financial wellbeing first.Outline of this episode:[1:46] - About Quansa[4:55] - The entrepreneurial ‘itch'[6:15] - Transition from the corporate world[10:26] - On meeting his co-founder[12:47] - Misaligned incentives in financial solutions[24:30] - Quansa's fundraising process[28:00] - Advice to Gonzalo's younger self [29:49] - Books, blogs, and podcast recommendations[31:20] - What's next for Quansa?[33:00] - Magma Partners and QuansaResources & people mentioned:Gonzalo BlancoMafalda BarrosQuansaStartup GaragePear AcceleratorFarnam StreetNavalStartup SchoolMagma PartnersFrancisco Saenz

Welcome back to the Pear Healthcare Playbook! Every week, we'll be getting to know trailblazing healthcare leaders and dive into building a digital health business from 0 to 1— this week, we're also joined by Eddie Eltoukhy, bio partner at Pear VC and formerly Head of Business Development at Senti Biosciences. This week, we're super excited to have AmirAli Talasaz, co-CEO and co-founder of Guardant Health, a leading precision oncology company focused on helping conquer cancer globally. Founded in 2011, Guardant Health is focused on helping conquer cancer through the use of its proprietary blood-based tests, vast data sets and advanced analytics. Guardant's solutions include treatment selection, recurrence detection and early detection of cancer. The Guardant Health oncology platform leverages capabilities to drive commercial adoption, improve patient clinical outcomes and lower healthcare costs across all stages of the cancer care continuum. Through multiple rounds of private financing, Guardant Health raised over $500 million from investors including Sequoia, Khosla, Lightspeed, OrbiMed, and Softbank, and Pear! and Guardant completed a successful IPO in October 2018.

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Mar Hershenson, Managing Partner at Pear VC.   There is a lot of confusion among founders as to the right approach to raising a series A because each industry, whether it's e-commerce, consumer, SaaS, or marketplace, has a different set of rules and tactics.   In this session, Mar Hershenson, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Pear VC gives us a masterclass on clinching your Series A.   Today, Mar covers the following topics:   2:08 - The backstory behind her venture into VC 5:55 - Where to find early-stage money 10:29 - How valuations have changed 14:30 - What matters most when fundraising 16:47 - What is a typical pre-seed round 19:53 - Where you have to be to raise seed 23:36 - The data that VCs actually measure 30:18 - What you have to show investors to get to series A 35:00 - Where you have to be to raise series A 40:02 - Why you should focus on the engine, not on the growth 45:28 - How much on average investors take ownership at each stage 52:52 - Recommendations for contacting investors 55:43 - The ideal company for Pear VC   Learn more at https://tractionconf.io   Connect with Mar Hershenson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mar-hershenson-b21395/   Learn more about Pear VC at https://www.pear.vc/   This episode is brought to you by:   Each year the U.S. and Canadian governments provide more than $20 billion in R&D tax credits and innovation incentives to fund businesses. But the application process is cumbersome, prone to costly audits, and receiving the money can take as long as 16 months. Boast automates this process, enabling companies to get more money faster without the paperwork and audit risk. We don't get paid until you do! Find out if you qualify today at https://Boast.AI.   Launch Academy is one of the top global tech hubs for international entrepreneurs and a designated organization for Canada's Startup Visa. Since 2012, Launch has worked with more than 6,000 entrepreneurs from over 100 countries, of which 300 have grown their startups to seed and Series A stage and raised over $2 billion in funding. To learn more about Launch's programs or the Canadian Startup Visa, visit https://LaunchAcademy.ca    Content Allies helps B2B companies build revenue-generating podcasts. We recommend them to any B2B company that is looking to launch or streamline its podcast production. Learn more at https://contentallies.com

In this episode, we talk to Rima about her journey from being a "stock picker" in equity research at GS to business development at Marc Jacobs and Ralph Lauren and eventually venture capital, first with XRC labs, and now Commerce Ventures. Rima also touches on her experience working for StartU, "a Techcrunch for student startups" as she calls it, while doing her MBA. She emphasizes the importance of mentorship and community in solving gender disparity in VC and encourages aspiring female investors to tap into their strengths and form meaningful relationships to break in. 

This week, we're super excited to have Elizabeth Burstein, CEO and Co-Founder at Neura Health. Founded in 2020, Neura Health is a virtual neurology clinic with a mission to improve the access and quality of neurological care: increase convenience, improve outcomes, and lower costs. Neura Health's platform connects patients to neurologists, with built in neurology-specific symptom monitoring and condition-specific diagnostic tests. The company's first app focus is on chronic headache and migraine. Prior to founding Neura Health, Liz was the Head of Product at Maven Clinic and Director of Product at ZocDoc. Neura Health recently announced that they raised a $2.2M seed round with Pear VC, Norwest Venture Partners, Global Founders Capital, Index Ventures, and Next Play Ventures.

The Reserve Bank of India yesterday launched additional features on the Unified Payments Interface platform that will allow people to make payments even on basic feature phones, which are still widely used in India. Considering that there are more than 40 crore feature phone mobile subscribers in the country, UPI123pay will materially improve the options for such users to access UPI, it said. Google has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Mandiant, a leader in dynamic cyber defence and response, for $23.00 per share, in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $5.4 billion, inclusive of Mandiant's net cash. According to the release, The acquisition of Mandiant will complement Google Cloud's existing strengths in security. In more Google Cloud news, the company has won a contract from Walmart's ecommerce unit Flipkart. Apple yesterday announced its latest iPhone SE, which has the company's A15 Bionic chip, a larger battery than the previous model and 5G wireless support. The new SE retains the home button and touch sensor, along with the compact 4.7-inch display. It has tougher glass than its predecessor, the same IP67 water resistance, but supports wireless charging. The phone is available in three colours — midnight, starlight, and red. iPhone SE will be available for pre-order this Friday, March 11, with availability beginning Friday, March 18. Prices in India start from Rs. 43,900, with no-cost EMIs available for qualifying credit cards. Swiggy, a food and groceries delivery service in India, has hired bankers as it gears up for an initial public offering next year to raise as much as $1 billion, TechCrunch reports. The Bangalore startup was valued at $10.7 billion after a funding round in January this year. The company, backed by investors including Prosus Ventures, Accel and SoftBank Group, has hired JP Morgan and ICICI Securities to help it with the listing, according to TechCrunch. InfoEdge is acquiring a 76 percent stake in Aisle, an Indian dating app provider, for Rs. 91 crores. With both Aisle and Jeevansathi, InfoEdge will look to strengthen its products in the matchmaking segment, the company said in a press release yesterday. Able Joseph, Founder and CEO of Aisle will continue to run Aisle. Cooby, a Taiwan-based conversation management tool provider, has raised $2.9 million to date, led by Sequoia India's Surge and Pear VC. Cooby is the first Taiwan startup to raise funding from Surge, according to a press release. Wizzy, an advanced site search solution for e-commerce stores and marketplaces, has raised nearly $300,000 in fresh funding from several investors, the 100X.VC portfolio startup said in a press release. The company will use the funds to develop its product, amplify its reach to store and marketplace owners around the world. Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

In this episode, we're super excited to have Lucia Huang, CEO and Co-Founder at Osmind, the operating system for neuropsychiatry. Founded in 2020, Osmind provides software and data for precision mental health to help the 22M Americans with treatment-resistant mental health conditions. Prior to founding Osmind, Lucia was the Director of Operations and Finance at Verge Genomics, a next generation neuroscience drug discovery company. In July 2021, Osmind raised a $15M Series A led by Future Ventures! We're a proud early supporter at Pear VC as well.

Welcome to More Equity. Today, we're bringing you a new episode from our Harlem Capital Crypto Convo Series — talking to investors and innovators who have found great opportunity amidst the Web3, blockchain, and crypto evolution. In this episode, we're joined by Anand Iyer, a Visiting Partner at Pear Venture Capital focused on blockchain and web3 investments. Anand has founded multiple companies — including Trusted, ThreadFlip and HitPost — and started his career building products at companies like Microsoft and Cisco.He's also an active angel investor, advisor to startups, and limited partner in several seed stage venture capital firms. Listen in to hear Anand's investor perspective on the basics, benefits and risks of decentralized finance.

In this episode, we're super excited to have Connor Hailey, CEO and Co-Founder of Axle Health here with us today. Founded in 2020, Axle Health enables any healthcare organization to send health professionals to patients' homes to administer blood draws, vaccines, injections and other physical services. We dive into Axle's founding story, the future of home health, landing their first pilot and then converting their pilots into expanded contracts as well as figuring out how to stack rank features during early stage product development. Axle Health has raised a $3M seed round led by Pear VC in Spring of 2021.

Pejman Nozad tells us about investing in Dropbox and DoorDash, and how he picks winners.     He also talks about Pear's current initiatives: Pear Accelerator, Pear Fellows, Pear competition and Founder Circles.    A lot to learn in this episode!

Gonzalo Blanco, Quansa: Building the future of financial health in Latin America, Ep 152   For years, Gonzalo Blanco and Mafalda Barros have seen how the misaligned incentives in Latin American financial products push the average person to make bad financial decisions. Due to this lack of guidance, people improvise and spend money without realizing the impact that their decisions have on their financial health.    This frustration with the lack of financial education led them to found Quansa, a corporate benefits platform focused on employee financial wellbeing. We invested in Quansa's last round and are excited to support them on their mission to promote employee financial health throughout the region.   In this episode, I sat down with Gonzalo to talk about why the incentives in Latin American financial products are broken and how Quansa aims to change that. Gonzalo also shares his lessons learned from working in the corporate world, participating in Pear.vc's accelerator, and going through the fundraising process in the US and Latin America. Pushing for employee financial health with no hidden agenda Latin Americans historically don't trust financial institutions. Banks and financial institutions push products on their clients, and many make bad decisions. However, through Quansa's digital diagnostic and personal financial coach, clients have transparency and can easily understand the impact of their decisions.    Learn more about how employees can incorporate healthy financial habits with Quansa in this episode of Crossing Borders. Transitioning from 10 years in the corporate world   Gonzalo explains that there is no perfect recipe for a person's decision to transition from the corporate world into entrepreneurship. For him, it was a matter of understanding the opportunities that would be available to him if he decided to continue working for a corporation. It was important for him to learn about company processes from larger organizations that had perfected them over time, but for the next step in his career, he wanted to be able to work with more speed and fewer limitations.    Listen to this episode of Crossing Borders to learn more about the lessons Gonzalo learned from working for a corporation. From Stanford's GSB to the Pear Accelerator 2020 The idea for Quansa originated in Stanford's Graduate School of Business when Gonzalo was taking a class called Startup Garage, part of his Master's program. Gonzalo and Mafalda were focusing on solving for financial health in Latin America. At that moment, they met Mar Hershenson from Pear VC who invited them to participate in Pear's Accelerator. It opened a world of opportunities for them.   Check out this episode of Crossing Borders to learn more about how they attracted investors from the US and Latin America.   Gonzalo Blanco is providing a financial solution to the Latin American market that has employees' best interests in mind with Quansa. With Mafalda, they are striving to change the way Latin Americans spend their money, putting their financial wellbeing first.   Outline of this episode: [1:46] - About Quansa [4:55] - The entrepreneurial ‘itch' [6:15] - Transition from the corporate world [10:26] - On meeting his co-founder [12:47] - Misaligned incentives in financial solutions [24:30] - Quansa's fundraising process [28:00] - Advice to Gonzalo's younger self  [29:49] - Books, blogs, and podcast recommendations [31:20] - What's next for Quansa? [33:00] - Magma Partners and Quansa   Resources & people mentioned: Gonzalo Blanco Mafalda Barros Quansa Startup Garage Pear Accelerator Farnam Street Naval Startup School Magma Partners Francisco Saenz

Invite-only social audio app, Clubhouse, has launched its direct messaging feature- Backchannel- for all users, which allows them to slide into a one-on-one chat mode or a group text format.Microsoft has unveiled Windows 365 that takes the OS to the cloud to offer a personalized PC experience for users and organizations, a new approach to cloud computing amid hybrid working.Simpplr has raised a $32M Series C from Tola Capital. Simpplr will use the new funds to develop its platform, expand its development team, and scale up to serve worldwide commercial clients.Crayhill Capital Management invests $300 million in Unybrands as growth capital. Unybrands is an eCommerce platform that helps Amazon fulfill and direct-to-consumer businesses scale.Deskimo, a Y Combinator's S21 batch startup providing on-demand access to work desks in professional workspaces, has launched in Singapore and Hong Kong after its inception in February this year, reports state.Cybereason, an end-point detection and response platform has raised $275 million in a crossover Series F funding round led by Liberty Strategic Capital, with participation from Irving Investors, certain funds advised by Neuberger Berman Investment Advisers LLC and Softbank Vision Fund 2*, it said in a press release.Bevy, an enterprise-grade virtual conference and community events platform, has acquired Eventtus, an engagement platform managing events for an undisclosed amount to offer a comprehensive end-to-end management solution and a seamless experience for event attendees.Flymachine, an organizer of digital live events, has raised $21 million in a round co-led by  Greycroft Partners and SignalFire, with participation from Primary Venture Partners, Contour Venture Partners, Red Sea Ventures, and Silicon Valley Bank.Untitled Ventures has announced its second fund of USD 118.3 million. It will collaborate with InnMind to deliver high-quality deep tech startup deal-flow to the fund's pipeline.Railsbank, a provider of APIs for fintech services, has raised $70 million in equity funding led by Anthos Capital. Other participants include Central Capital, Cohen and Company, and Chris Adelsbach's new fund Outrun Ventures.Cardless, a platform developer for companies launching credit cards, has raised $40 million in a Series B funding round led by Activant Capital. Other participants include Accomplice, Pear VC, and the owners and management of NBA teams Phoenix Suns and Boston Celtics. The funding increases the company's total raised since its debut in 2019 to $50 million.The Moot Group (TMG), an eCommerce technology startup, has raised €5 million (approx. USD 6.9 million) in a seed funding round led by Fuel Ventures. The new funds will be used for the company's next growth stage. Great Question raises $2.5 million in a seed funding round. Great Question is an online platform that provides product managers, designers, researchers, and research operations with UX research services. Great Question was part of Y Combinator's winter program of 2021.  BHyve, a future of work platform, has raised $300,000 in a JITO Angel Network, LetsVenture, and other angel investors. BHyve is a platform for disseminating tacit employee knowledge and allowing peer learning networks in the future of work.Mobile.dev, a startup providing pre-production workflows to help mobile teams automatically detect problems, has raised $3 million in seed round funding from Cowboy Ventures.Acelerate, a software company helping restaurants operate efficiently, has announced the raise of $14.4 million in Series A funding led by Sequoia Capital. Taking the announcement to its LinkedIn handle, the company expressed delight at the investment after a year of bootstrapping.Stytch has raised $30 million in Series A funding led by Thrive Capital with participation from Coatue and existing investors, Benchmark and Index, the company wrote in an official blog. Multiplier, a Professional Employment Organization (PEO) platform, raises a $4 million investment round. It provides complete solutions that enable businesses to hire individuals globally. Proper, a property accounting services provider for the real estate industry, has announced the raise of $9M in Series A from QED Investors, with participation from our partners at MetaProp, Expa, and Bling Capital. 

In this episode of The Pulse Podcast, we interview Connor Hailey, CEO and Co-Founder of Axle Health, a software platform that enables any company to add in-home visits to their patient offering. We cover Connor's penchant for startups and entrepreneurship, Axle Health's founding story and early product journey and how they have scaled to thousands of in-home visits in just one year of launch. Founded in 2020, Axle Health eliminates the complexity of delivering in-home care by offering a simple API that dispatches in-home professionals to provide clinical service offerings. Axle Health recently announced their seed fundraise led by Pear VC, joined by a talented group of investors including Wisdom Partners, Rebel Fund, Pioneer Fund, Soma Capital, and Company Ventures and YCombinator. Along with institutional investors, the seed fundraise also includes angels including the founders of Eden Health, CareRev, and Quit Genius, and Nikhil Krishnan of Out of Pocket and former executives at One Medical. This funding will expand service offerings to meet more customer needs and attract top talent to Axle Health.

Hey everyone!Different type of letter today, I don’t normally do this, but I want to bring something to your attention.*I’m not getting paid for this in any way btw*I recently got introduced to the founder of this new social media app, Faves. His name is Tyler Maloney and he’s raised money from Mark Cuban and Pear VC (who gave DoorDash their first check), among others.Now I know, I know, there’s always another “App…”I’m usually the slowest to pick these up as well… (I still don’t know why people like Tic Tok lol)But Faves caught my eye for a couple key reasons. Tyler is a beast. It’s all about the founders with these things and he’s kind of got that Zuckerberg look if you know what I mean.The content is CURATED and covers ALL platforms.I’m going to type this bigger so you can read it.The content is CURATED and covers ALL platforms.Why do you guys read this letter?Because it is CURATED by someone you trust (hopefully) me.Now, imagine that you could see ALL content that I think is interesting, from ALL platforms…. in one place…Instagram…Twitter…Tic Toc (If I can figure it out)Facebook… Etc.THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT FAVES IS.It allows you to follow PEOPLE YOU TRUST (not just me, much smarter people even) and see ALL of the content that they think is interesting, in ONE PLACE.It’s honestly pretty sick.The second you see a tweet that makes you go “wow” and then scroll down and see a FULL SCREEN TIC TOK that ALSO makes you go “wow” without leaving the app…. you will understand the power of it….Anyway, long story short, I think this is going to be HUGE and actually has a chance to go after the big dogs in the social media space. Tyler has actually been kind enough to grant me a limited number of invites to Faves, so that a few of my readers can get early access to the platform (and secure all the best user names… I literally got KALE as my user tag haha!)Just click the image below to sign up and get early access!Here’s the direct link if that doesn’t work -> https://faves.media/earlyaccessAnyway, that’s all I’ve got for today, make sure you go sign up. Again, I’m not making any money from this, I just think it’s cool, and I think you will like it.Plus, with all the craziness in “Big Tech” happening right now, I think it would be nice of us to support Tyler as a founder and see if we can make this Faves thing awesome, together. If you get in, and have feedback about the app, make sure you let me know and I’ll pass the word onto Tyler. The cool thing about a startup like this is that you can actually make changes…..Here’s to being one of the first users on the NEXT Facebook/Twitter.Have a great day, here’s the link one more time -> faves.media/earlyaccessKale Get on the email list at thekaleletter.substack.com

Founder's FAQ: answers to all the possible questions of a founder. Hosted by Ilker Koksal. This episode's guest is Pejman Nozad. Pejman is a founding managing partner at Pear VC, a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage startups, based in Palo Alto. Pejman has over 15 years of experience investing in early-stage high tech startups. He built a $40B+ portfolio, investing in over 300 startups and seeding several multi-billion dollar companies such as Dropbox, DoorDash, Guardant Health, Lending Club, SoundHound, and Gusto. And lastly, he is a soccer fan.

Mar Hershenson co-founded Pear VC in 2013, and under her watch the firm has made seed and pre-seed investments in category-defining companies like DropBox, Gusto, DoorDash and Branch Metrics. Along the way, she's spent a significant amount of time mentoring student-entrepreneurs. In this talk, she focuses on some of the most common questions and concerns she hears from student entrepreneurs, offering insights she's gained both as a serial startup founder and as a seed-stage VC investor.

This week, I'm sitting down with Mar Hershenson, one of the Founding Managing partners at Pear Ventures, a VC firm that supports new entrepreneurs with fresh ideas and funding. After studying electrical engineering at Stanford, Mar co-founded three tech and hardware startups, eventually transitioning to the funding side of VC to found Pear with other immigrants. In this episode we talk about how Dropbox CEO, the interconnection of immigration and entrepreneurship, and scaling a startup the right pace. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/venture-vignettes/support

Ajay Kamat ( https://www.pear.vc/ajay-kamat ) is a Partner at Pear ( https://www.pear.vc/ ) , one of the premier early stage venture capital funds in Silicon Valley. Prior to Pear, Ajay founded Wedding Party ( https://techcrunch.com/2015/08/04/instacart-makes-its-first-acquisition-with-acqui-hire-of-app-maker-wedding-party/ ) , which was acquired by Instacart ( https://www.instacart.com/ ). Pear was founded by Mar Hershenson ( https://www.pear.vc/mar-hershenson ) ( https://www.crunchbase.com/person/pejman-nozad ) and ( https://www.crunchbase.com/person/pejman-nozad ) Pejman Nozad ( https://www.pear.vc/pejman-nozad ) , who were early investors in Dropbox ( https://www.dropbox.com/home ) , Lending Club ( https://www.lendingclub.com/loans/personal-loans?gclid=CjwKCAiA8ejuBRAaEiwAn-iJ3js0brhKzV1Z5q34L6RPRFB9dgBdvIvGazmDnDqASgITDu0qBuPJjBoCECIQAvD_BwE¶m2=GzB011zA003zAC11x14zLP1z&partnerID=80019&referrerId=490425&utm_campaign=B011%3ALending+Club+-+%5BE%5D&utm_content=312048777992&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_term=lending+club ) , Zoosk ( https://www.zoosk.com/ ) , Addepar ( https://addepar.com/ ) , Path ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_(social_network) ) and many others. Some of Pear's notable investments include DoorDash ( https://www.doordash.com/ ) , Philz Coffee ( https://www.philzcoffee.com/ ) , Instaread ( https://instaread.co/ ) , and Memebox ( https://us.memebox.com/ ). You can follow Ajay on Twitter Here ( https://twitter.com/ajaykam ). If you would like to follow your host, Mike, for updates on the show, you can follow @mikegelb ( https://twitter.com/MikeGelb ) and the show @ConsumerVC ( https://twitter.com/ConsumerVc ) In this episode you will learn: * Ajay's journey from biomedical engineering to founding Wedding Party ( https://techcrunch.com/2015/08/04/instacart-makes-its-first-acquisition-with-acqui-hire-of-app-maker-wedding-party/ ). Some of the lessons Ajay learned from being a founder and how it has influenced him as a venture capitalist. The importance of grit when founding a company. * The importance of complementary skills and vetting co-founders. The reason why he switched from being a founder to a venture capitalist. * What qualities Ajay looks for from founders at the pre-seed and seed level? How he evaluates startups building products in markets that don't exist yet? * The advantages of being in Silicon Valley. How he thinks about customer acquisition costs in today's age. * What industry consumer verticals he's excited about the most? One company that he is excited to be an investor in? One piece of advice for founders of consumer companies? If you would like to *follow along* you can *click “Subscribe”* on the *Apple podcast app or whichever platform you are listening on*. If you enjoyed the episode, feel free to also leave a review. You are also to see all episodes here and learn more at www.theconsumervc.com ( http://www.theconsumervc.com/ ) and follow Mike on Twitter ( https://twitter.com/MikeGelb ) or Instagram ( https://www.instagram.com/mikegelb/ )