Pear Demo Day Startups: Promising New Companies

Pear’s Demo Day: A Look at Nascent Startups

Attending every investing firm’s demo day isn’t feasible, but Pear’s annual event, held each fall, is a priority. This year’s event showcased approximately a dozen very early-stage startups.

Founded in 2013, Pear is a seed-stage venture firm with a strong history of identifying promising companies in their initial phases. Notable investments include DoorDash, Gusto, Aurora Solar, Vanta, Branch Metrics, and Guardant Health. Remarkably, Pear consistently presents at least one or two projects during its Demo Day that evolve into viable, sustainable, and often substantial businesses, despite featuring a smaller number of teams than larger programs like Y Combinator.

Past Successes from Pear

Over seven previous “batches” encompassing 69 teams, Pear has supported the growth of companies like Xilis, which utilizes “micro-organoids” to create thousands of 3D tumor replicas for drug compatibility testing (securing a $70 million Series A round this summer). Additionally, Affinity, a relationship intelligence company, recently announced $80 million in Series C funding, and Viz.ai, with software aiding stroke diagnosis and care coordination, has surpassed $150 million in funding after its latest round in March. Pear continues to highlight other successful ventures within its portfolio.

This Year’s Showcase: 13 Emerging Teams

This year’s event, held on Wednesday, featured 13 very young teams. Pear also facilitated connections between investors and five of its portfolio companies emerging from stealth mode. The following provides a summary of the pitches delivered, offering insights into emerging trends and potential investment opportunities.

Please note that the descriptions below are directly from the teams’ presentations to investors and may contain some degree of enthusiastic language, typical of startup pitches.

Startup Highlights

• Burst

Founders: Sameer Kapur (CPO), Vishnu Chakroborty (CTO), Gautam Ajjarapu (CEO)

“Burst is the first DeFi-powered bank designed for Generation Z, enabling users to maximize their earnings. Our initial product, Burst savings, offers up to 250x higher returns than traditional banks by eliminating intermediaries. We leverage DeFi protocols to potentially grow users’ funds by up to 10% annually. Future products will encompass spending, borrowing, and investing, all aimed at increasing our users’ financial resources. The founding team previously collaborated on revenue-generating ventures reaching over 600,000 Gen Z users. Gautam and Vishnu have engineering experience at Stripe, Google, and Amazon, while Sameer was the first product manager at Perch Credit, a consumer neobank startup. We are dedicated to making the advantages of crypto and DeFi accessible to empower our generation’s financial independence.”

• Health U

Founders: Emily Stebbins (Co-CEO), Jonathan Siktberg (Co-CEO)

“Health U integrates persuasive microlearning with a clinically validated diabetes prevention program to deliver scalable, self-directed care. Our mobile platform provides bite-sized care programs for pre-diabetes patients, requiring only 3 minutes daily and offering real-time disease prevention for value-based providers. Through frequent microlearning and personalized health coaching, Health U maintains patient engagement. Our solution is uniquely positioned to deliver significant 3-year ROI for Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), serving over 10 million pre-diabetic patients. Jonathan’s experience in medical school and Emily’s background in digital product at Bain and Health Tech at JNJ drive our mission to revolutionize chronic disease care.”

• Bonfire

Founders: Matt Alston (CEO), Melissa Zhang (CTO)

“Bonfire empowers creators to transform audiences into thriving communities through user-friendly tools and a no-code platform powered by social tokens and NFTs. We are building the infrastructure to simplify community management for creators, including a dashboard, CRM, and engagement toolkit. Melissa previously served as a senior software engineer at Coinbase, scaling their internationalization infrastructure, and Matt was a product manager at Uber, developing their loyalty program. We share a passion for enabling creators to own their platforms and achieve independence.”

• Allset

Founder: Justin Clegg (CEO)

“Allset is a mobile messaging solution driving revenue for the 5 million home service businesses in North America. These businesses, typically employing around 6 people, prioritize growth. While tools like Service Titan manage field operations, a simple solution for marketing and sales is needed. We’ve identified SMS as an effective communication channel. AllSet is a comprehensive SMS platform integrated with home services field management systems, enabling personalized customer flows for tipping, offers, reminders, and subscriptions. We launched our tipping flow 6 weeks ago and have experienced 20% week-over-week growth.”

• Skipper

Founders: Jason Shames (CEO), Cole Maritz (CRO), Dane Bratz (CTO), Michael Walker

“Skipper is a new network for hotels and resorts, streamlining their tech stack, customer acquisition, and revenue generation. We are building an alternative to traditional hotel chains like Marriott and Hilton by providing hotels with tools, similar to Bolt’s one-click checkout, to increase conversions and deliver targeted offers and rewards. As more guests and hotels join, the shared data creates a powerful network effect.”

• GatherMade

Founders: Mackenzie Branigan (CEO), Joe Sofia (COO)

“GatherMade is building a trusted sharing economy for family meals. Recent regulatory changes have created a new supply: home chefs (parents, grandparents, and caregivers) earning income by cooking from their kitchens. We empower them with the software and infrastructure to run profitable businesses. Focusing on families provides better unit economics, efficient order batching, and consistent demand. We are committed to empowering families through economic opportunity, inclusivity, and community support.”

• Parthean

Founders: Arman Hezarkhani (CEO), Jason Zhu (CDO), Nikhil Choudhary (CTO)

“A significant portion of Americans lack financial literacy, negatively impacting their lives. In 2020, $415 billion was lost due to poor money management, and 60% of individuals experience anxiety related to finances. Only 17% receive personal finance education in school. Parthean teaches financial literacy to young professionals through playbooks created in partnership with finance-focused content creators, covering critical events like building credit and making investments. Users engage with videos, quizzes, and polls, fostering a collaborative learning environment. Our goal is to empower young professionals to achieve their financial goals.”

• Valar Labs

Founders: Anirudh Joshi (CEO), Damir Vrabac (COO), Viswesh Krishna (CTO)

“Valar Labs guides oncologists in making more informed cancer treatment decisions. Leveraging medical imaging data and AI, developed in collaboration with Professor Andrew Ng at Stanford, we unlock the potential of untapped data to assist oncologists. We collaborate with leading oncologists and cancer centers like UCSF, UCSD, and the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network to build our platform.”

• Kale

Founder: Isha Patel (CEO), Luis Molina (CTO)

“Kale is the first credit card designed to translate creators’ social value into economic value. We identify brands’ most engaged fans based on purchasing history and social activity, rewarding them for content creation. Kale charges a fee for each successful match between brands and creators. Isha and Luis previously worked together at LinkedIn, launching video features to 700 million users, and are experts in user-generated content and creator communities.”

• Aklivity

Founders: Leonid Lukyanov (CEO), John Fallows (CTO)

“Aklivity is an API platform that accelerates the time-to-market for enterprise API initiatives by up to 97%. It supports building, deploying, and managing modern streaming APIs, which are incompatible with existing solutions. Aklivity relieves teams from complex integrations and manual efforts. The team pioneered WebSocket technology and has established relationships with over 21,000 organizations, addressing a $2 billion market opportunity.”

• SAVVI

Founders: Maya Mikhailov (CEO) Alex Muller (President)

“SAVVI is a complete, embeddable ML solution empowering 600,000 product teams (U.S.) to efficiently add personalization and intelligence to their products. Product Managers and Developers can easily implement, deploy, and manage machine learning without requiring data scientists or ML expertise. Teams using SAVVI have seen a 1,500% ROI compared to traditional ML methods.”

• Transcera

Founders: Hunter Globe (CEO), Wayne Lencer (Academic Co-Founder), Justin Wolfe (CSO)

“Biologic drugs have revolutionized medicine, creating a $375 billion market. However, their large, complex structure hinders natural absorption. Current methods require injections or infusions. Transcera has developed a platform enabling oral absorption of biologics, potentially improving patient adherence. Dr. Wayne Lencer’s research on cholera revealed a lipid capable of carrying larger molecules across cellular barriers. We are applying this technology to chronic diseases, starting with oral peptide drugs for diabetes and obesity.”

• Omniscient Labs

Founders: Andrew Fang (CTO), Jon Braatz (CEO)

“Omniscient Lab’s geospatial image intelligence platform uses computer vision to automatically monitor locations for defense and intelligence customers. Over 90% of collected imagery goes unreviewed, potentially missing critical information. Omniscient’s platform detects historical patterns and integrates with existing workflows. They’ve received grants from the Air Force and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, potentially leading to significant contracts.”

• Recora

Founder: Abhishek Chandra (CEO)

“One in three individuals will die of heart disease – it’s time for change. Recora is an enterprise platform for cardiac care, enabling patients to recover at home after a heart attack. Traditional recovery programs require travel to facilities with long wait times, leading to low completion rates and rehospitalization. We offer a virtual program with video visits and connected devices, demonstrating 3x better outcomes in a 200-patient pilot. We currently serve 23,000 patients across 12 hospitals, with 220% month-over-month enrollment growth. These contracts represent a $46 million opportunity, and we aim to secure 20 contracts in 26 states within the next year, targeting a $10 billion market.”

• Kensa AI

Founder: Nathan Schuett (CEO)

“Kensa AI develops image processing software to automate and improve visual inspections for civil infrastructure (bridges, dams, buildings, cell towers, etc.). Focusing initially on concrete and steel, we combine hi-res 3D reconstructions from drones with deep learning to detect defects. Our customers include Class 1 railroads, electric utilities, and multinational engineering companies. With a team of 5 and projected revenues of $800,000 in 2021, Kensa AI is rapidly growing and establishing a data advantage in infrastructure asset management.”

• FarmRaise

Founders: Jayce Hafner (CEO), Albert Albedi (Head of Product), Sami Tellatin (COO)

“Over half of American farms lack the tools to improve profitability. Our API links to farmers’ bank accounts, assessing their financial health and providing a “Farm Read” score. We continuously monitor data to offer recommendations and connect farmers with capital. This data-driven approach helps farmers improve their financial standing.”

• Gatsby

Founders: Zach Rivkin (CEO), Chris Zelazo (Co-Founder), Michael Zuccarino (Co-Founder)

“Successful businesses are built on strong relationships, and Gatsby facilitates professional network management. Gatsby serves as the system of record for your network, providing tools to augment contact information and create intelligent workflows for managing connections, prioritizing contacts, and organizing events. We are initially targeting investing professionals and plan to expand to all professionals who prioritize network management.”

• Smarty

Founders: Denzil Eden (CEO)

“Smarty is an intelligence layer connecting you to all your data and applications. You interact with Smarty online, and it automates routine workflows, allowing you to focus on critical tasks. Use pre-built recipes, create custom triggers, or use natural language commands to automate data movement between applications. Denzil, a graduate of MIT and HBS, created Smarty to empower professionals to streamline tasks, leverage best practices, and learn from their data.”

Pear’s Demo Day continues to be a valuable event for identifying promising startups and gaining insights into emerging trends in the venture capital landscape.