Pear VC Fellows is a two‑semester, part‑time apprenticeship that turns entrepreneurial students at 40+ U.S. universities into on‑the‑ground extensions of the firm’s pre‑seed investing team. Fellows attend weekly remote workshops run by Pear partners Mar Hershenson and Pejman Nozad, learning fund mechanics, market sizing, diligence frameworks and founder coaching tactics.  Programming is designed to fit a full course load: sessions are scheduled for late afternoons Pacific Time and are recorded for asynchronous review.

The curriculum moves from “zero‑to‑one” idea validation in the fall to term‑sheet analysis and post‑investment support in the spring. Each fellow sources at least five startups from their campus or online communities, triages them with a Pear mentor and, where appropriate, brings founders to the firm’s weekly partner meeting  .  High‑potential leads can receive up to $25 000 in exploratory funding through Pear’s Dorm initiative, giving fellows real influence over the firm’s pipeline.

Cohorts are intentionally small—30 to 35 seats—to preserve a 1‑to‑4 partner‑to‑fellow ratio. The 2023–24 class, for example, included 33 students from Stanford, MIT, Howard, Berkeley, UT Austin and Georgia Tech.  Beyond classroom content, fellows receive one‑on‑one career coaching, free passes to Pear’s annual Founder Summit, and lifetime access to a Slack network of 250+ alumni now working at a16z, OpenAI, Scale AI and Google X.

Because Pear backs companies as early as “paper‑napkin” stage, the fellowship emphasises founder empathy: fellows practice mock office hours, run product‑feedback sprints and shadow Pear’s accelerator demo‑day prep. Many go on to raise dorm‑room seed rounds themselves—DoorDash and Branch trace their first institutional conversations to Pear student scouts.  Graduates who excel are fast‑tracked for paid summer analyst roles or invited to join Pear full‑time after graduation.

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