PearX Demo Day in San Francisco Draws VCs to Five Startups

PearX caps each cohort at 20 startups and does not offer standard terms, with investments that can reach $2 million. Unlike Y Combinator, where some buzzy startups raise funding before a program ends, PearX says it keeps participants under wraps until demo day. Its demo days are attended by top venture capitalists because of the track record of previous cohorts, which include Known, a voice AI dating startup backed by Forerunner Ventures, and Andera, which automates corporate audit and compliance and raised a $37 million Series A from Lightspeed this summer.

Speridlabs builds spatial foundation models for robotics, gaming, and special effects. It argues that more established competitors, including Runway, Odyssey, and Google's Genie, cannot be queried or modified. Speridlabs built Mundus, which it calls a 3D Midjourney because it keeps geometry persistent when a part is changed.

Saia is developing a fast, cost-efficient chip that runs inference directly on device. Nvidia GPUs and Google TPUs require expensive, power-hungry memory that is in short supply, according to the startup. Saia claims its chip bypasses traditional memory by running AI directly out of flash storage. It says the chip delivers vastly superior speeds and eight times the capacity while using four times less power than Nvidia's Jetson, a leading local AI chip and board. Saia says it is in discussions with Samsung about memory integration, plans to start fabricating test chips next year, and aims to launch mass production by 2028. The company's 20-year-old founder, Ayaan Govil, convinced Pear VC co-founder Mar Hershenson, a semiconductor engineer with a PhD in circuit design, to take a chance on his vision.

Ren is building a more secure AI personal assistant. It claims to offer functionality similar to Muse and Instinct but with a heavy focus on security and privacy. The startup says it keeps data on-device where possible or uses a secure private cloud, checking actions against strict user-set guardrails. Ren also distinguishes itself from competitors that rely on human operators to place phone calls by using a fully automated voice system, keeping human involvement out of the loop to protect user privacy.

Veros is an AI-native trust and estate planner. It aims to simplify work normally done by attorneys, wealth managers, and trust administrators by using AI to recommend structures and manage assets over their lifetime. It is already managing $250 million in assets under management and is in the process of securing a trust charter so it can operate as a regulated trust company itself.

Datum is an AI engineer for industrial design. It wants to speed up physical product development by helping engineers find and use what they built previously. The startup indexes a company's library of 3D designs. Using proprietary Geometric Fingerprint technology, Datum identifies parts based on their shape, helping streamline and automate engineering across a massive physical design market.

Editor's Summary

PearX's latest demo day in San Francisco put 16 early-stage companies in front of venture capitalists, with five drawing particular interest. The group spans spatial AI, on-device inference chips, secure personal assistants, trust and estate planning, and industrial design software. Saia's chip claims and ongoing talks with Samsung are among the more concrete milestones described at the event.