Rug Salesman Turned Valley Insider Raises a $432 Million Seed Fund (with Pejman Nozad)

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.”

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