Co-Founder & Founding Managing Partner at Pear VC · Joined 2013
View Live Interactive Profile →Pejman Nozad may be tech's most unlikely venture capitalist - an Iranian immigrant who worked as a sports journalist, radio host, and professional soccer player before landing at a rug store in downtown Palo Alto, where he immersed himself in the local tech scene and slowly built a reputation for spotting promising founders. After 17 years as an angel investor backing Dropbox, Lending Club, and Addepar, he convinced Stanford lecturer and three-time founder Mar Hershenson to co-found Pejman Mar Ventures with him in 2013, rebranded as Pear VC in 2016. His conviction produced the firm's defining moment that same founding year: he burst into the office insisting they back a food delivery startup called DoorDash, despite Hershenson's initial skepticism, turning a roughly $1.9 million investment into more than $440 million at the company's 2020 IPO - a nearly 233-times return on Pear's entire first fund from a single bet. Nozad has ranked on the Forbes Midas List every year since 2021, taking the #1 spot on the Midas Seed List in 2024.