PearX, the 12-week accelerator run by Pear VC, held its latest demo day in San Francisco last week. The program is known for small cohorts and flexible investments up to $2 million, and it keeps participants under wraps until demo day. That approach appears to be working: recent graduates include Known and Andera, the latter of which raised a $37 million Series A from Lightspeed this summer.
TechCrunch asked attending VCs which of the 16 presenting startups generated the most buzz. Five stood out. Speridlabs builds spatial foundation models for robotics and gaming, with a tool called Mundus that keeps 3D geometry persistent when edited. Saia is designing an inference chip that runs directly from flash storage, claiming eight times the capacity and four times less power than Nvidia’s Jetson. Ren offers a privacy-focused AI assistant that keeps data on-device and uses fully automated voice calls. Veros applies AI to trust and estate planning and already manages $250 million in assets. Datum indexes 3D design libraries to help engineers reuse parts.
The list reflects a broader trend: investors are backing AI startups that target specific professional workflows rather than general-purpose chatbots. Hardware remains a risky bet, but Saia’s founder, 20-year-old Ayaan Govil, convinced Pear VC co-founder Mar Hershenson, a semiconductor engineer, to back the vision. Saia says it plans to fabricate test chips next year and reach mass production by 2028.
Because this report draws on a single source, the selections reflect that outlet’s observations rather than a consensus across the venture community. Still, the companies named are the ones TechCrunch says VCs were talking about after the event.