Insurance provider New York Life Insurance is among the limited partners in the $75m second fund recently launched by US-based venture capital firm Pear, TechCrunch reported yesterday.
Pear revealed the fund at the same time as it rebranded itself from its former name, Pejman Mar Ventures. The fund’s other LPs include asset manager TrueBridge Capital Partners and University of Chicago, which also contributed to the Pejman Mar’s $50m first fund, which closed in March 2015.
Founded in 2013, Pear provides up to $500,000 at pre-seed stage – what it calls soil investments – between $500,000 and $1.5m in seed rounds and between $750,000 and $3m at series A stage.
The firm has a 45-strong portfolio that currently includes delivery service Doordash, brain training game developer Elevate, genomic cancer testing company Guardant Health and Gusto, the payroll services provider formerly known as ZenPayroll. It is yet to achieve an exit.