We are thrilled to welcome Pear Commerce to the Stage 2 portfolio!
Stage 2 led the $10M Series A investment with participation from our friends at Dundee, M25, Mairs & Power, Heartland alongside other notable investors. This milestone marks the next step in an exciting journey to transform digital advertising for Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) brands. Read more about the round in Pear’s announcement here.
Founding Vision: Solving CPG Challenges
Eric and Alex founded Pear Commerce to address two essential questions for CPG brands: Where is my product in stock? And did the customer buy after they clicked an ad? To tackle these issues, Pear gathers hundreds of millions of inventory data points daily from over 3,000 North American retail locations. This extensive, near real-time data set allows CPG brands to create unique user experiences, like embedding inventory feeds in social ads and providing consumers with precise store location information.
Improving the Shopping Experience
Imagine a shopper is interested in buying the new limited release flavor of their favorite energy drink. With Pear's technology, an ad can direct the shopper to the nearest store where the item is in stock, providing a seamless purchase experience. This level of insight and interactivity significantly boosts the effectiveness of digital advertising campaigns, and offers capabilities that were largely out of reach for brands before Pear.
This capability has always been something CPGs wanted. But with the rapid rise of Retail Media Networks, which are capturing a larger and larger share of CPG ad dollars, has made it even more important. Brands need to have a tight handle on the digital placement and merchandising of their products, to understand what products are driving sales across the mix of retailer channels, and to improve this performance directly. We think that, in tandem with the RMN offerings from retailers, Pear will be the foundation that CPG brands use to get the most out of the RMN opportunity.
Beyond Inventory Tracking: A Vision for Complete Data Integration
Pear’s vision extends beyond inventory tracking. By consolidating traffic for numerous CPG brands, Pear aims to persuade retailers to share purchase and transaction data. This data sharing creates a closed-loop system that offers comprehensive insights into advertising spend effectiveness, a critical need for CPG brands seeking to optimize their marketing strategies.
Several industry trends make Pear’s solutions more relevant than ever. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the shift from in-store to online purchases, especially with the digital-native Gen Z and Millennial buyers. Meanwhile, new changes in privacy regulations by Apple and Google are making it harder for brands to track and measure the return on ad spend (ROAS) using third-party cookies. Pear’s solutions provide a new alternative for CPG brands through shoppable media.
Today, Pear serves a growing number of CPG customers—both emerging and enterprise brands like Perdue, Liquid Death, and Siete Foods—including five of the top 20 CPG brands. Pear is uniquely positioned to transform how CPG brands approach digital advertising, offering unparalleled transparency and efficiency.
If we’ve piqued your interest, Pear Commerce is hiring for several critical roles.