Pier seeks to empower emerging VCs with its new senior managers

When seed-focused Peer VC raised a $432 million fund last year, firm co-founder Pejman Nozad said it meant his firm had reached its “own product-market-fit.” That fourth fund was nearly three times larger than its previous $160 million fund.

The 11-year-old firm wants to help emerging venture funds follow in Peer’s footsteps. On Wednesday, Peer announced the Peer Emerging Managers in Residence, a program that brings three emerging pre-seed and seed venture funds to Peer’s offices for collaboration such as deal flow sharing and due diligence.

Peer will also write a $250,000 check to invest in these managers’ funds, facilitate LP introductions, and give them early access to companies in Peer’s accelerator. The latter is a privilege typically reserved for partners at top firms like NEA, Lux Capital, and Sequoia Capital.

The firm’s emerging manager program was conceived by Peer partner Kathleen Estreich, who previously ran her own emerging firm, MKT1 Capital. Rather than raise her own second fund, which would have been a very difficult task in this funding environment, Estreich joined Peer a few months ago.

Before joining, Estreich spoke to Peer’s founders, Pejman Nozad and Mar Hershenson, about the importance of operator-turned-fund managers in the VC ecosystem. Nozad and Hershenson liked Estreich’s idea. And the idea of ​​a residency program run by Estreich was born.

“We picked three emerging managers and gave them a full understanding of what we do,” Nozad said. “We invest in their funds. They see our deal flow and how we evaluate deals. We give them an office and we help them raise funds.”

Of course, Pierce isn’t the only VC firm that teams up with emerging managers. Firms like Bain Capital Ventures have a dedicated fund-of-funds to invest in new venture funds.

Estreich told TechCrunch that unlike BCV, Pear is investing directly from its latest fund. “We’re almost making them an extension of Pear,” he said. “I also think seeing what the next stages of a venture fund look like will help them get there faster.”

The first members of Pier’s Emerging Manager Program include Sarah Smith of the Sarah Smith Fund, John Gleeson of Success Venture Partners, and David Ongcho Ongchoko and Adarsh ​​Bhatt of Comma Capital.

Estreich said these funds were chosen for their unique value-add to the early-stage ecosystem. For example, Gleason runs the largest customer success meetup in the country; Comma Capital has a strong community of mid-career engineers at top tech companies, and Pierce could learn about Smith’s unique approach to connecting with founders.

Estrich said the Pier Emerging Manager in Residence will last for one year and welcome three new VCs to its offices in approximately 12 months.