After Steve Case investment, Iowa City's Pear Deck sets sights on Google Demo Day

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How local pitch competitions helped Pear Deck prepare for Steve Case and a national stage

After a year of building product and working the pitch and competition circuit, Pear Deck is ready for the spotlight – or rather, spotlights, with four major events in the span of 22 days.

Fresh off winning a $150,000 personal investment from AOL co-founder Steve Case and competing in an EdTech pitch-off at South By Southwest last week, the four co-founders are preparing to pitch in Washington D.C. for the Village Capital EdTech Venture Forum on April 1 and Mountain View, Calif. for Google for Entrepreneurs Demo Day on April 2.

“We're pulling in all our favors from friends and family,” co-founder and COO Michal Eynon-Lynch said with a laugh. “We know that the Iowa community has been tremendous in making these opportunities happen.”

Pear Deck was founded in January 2014 by Riley Eynon-Lynch, Michal Eynon-Lynch, Dan Sweeney and Anthony Showalter after the four co-founders exited Haiku Learning, which had acquired previous Iowa City startup ActiveGrade. The company created an interactive presentation platform for classrooms that allows teachers to get real-time feedback from students. As former teachers themselves, both Riley and Michal saw how technology could empower more one-to-one interactions between teachers and students.

Although Pear Deck had pitched to Case before, when the Rise of the Rest entrepreneurial road trip visited Des Moines last fall, the chance to pitch again was entirely unexpected. Bawte, a Des Moines-based TechStars alum, had won the pitch-off in Des Moines and the opportunity to advance to Austin. But when Bawte had a scheduling conflict, and Pear Deck was already at SXSW for the LaunchEDU pitch-off, Rise of the Rest called them in.

“It was a big shock, I think all of the CoLab heard my reaction,” Eynon-Lynch said. “It's really great to have someone of his caliber standing behind our company…it's an honor, and it just helps us gain more exposure.”

In an interview with CNBC, Case said the Rise of the Rest judges were taken with the problem that Pear Deck is trying to solve.

“Pear Deck's focus on education, really trying to reinvent the classroom and the interaction with teachers and students, was the clear winner,” he said. “we had three judges and all three said Pear Deck was number one.”

The company now employs seven, with five based out of the Iowa City CoLab, and is reaching 100,000 students with 30 percent growth month over month.

“There has been such a decrease in the barriers to entry for business today,” said Herbie Ziskend, director of Rise of the Rest. “Now, there's no reason this company can't grow and hire people in Iowa.”

Indeed, Pear Deck has grown steadily, with a launch or expansion, pitch or award, or a round of funding nearly every month since the company was formed (see timeline below).

Focusing on pitch competitions has helped Pear Deck gain exposure, but more importantly, has helped the four co-founders stay in alignment, Eynon-Lynch said.

“There's an opportunity for our team to get on the same page – to make sure we're always agreeing on where we're going,” she said. “It forces us to reevaluate and focus our path.”

She said the founders will typically start working on a pitch weeks in advance, revising an old version or starting from scratch. They'll all collaborate on the draft before starting to design the visuals, and then ask mentors and friends for feedback before the final presentation.

In Austin, however, they didn't have time to do that – and since LaunchEDU was EdTech focused and Rise of the Rest covered many industries, they had to rewrite their pitch in a matter of days. Riley even ended up putting out a call for help on a group text of Iowan attendees for someone to advance the slides during the pitch.

“Every day, I feel so grateful to be building this in Iowa City – we couldn't feel more supported,” Eynon-Lynch said.

The Village Capital pitch represents the culmination of a three-month accelerator program, and Pear Deck beat out “a massive number of competitors” to win the only publicly-available chance to pitch at Google.

With four national programs happening so quickly, the startup is growing even faster than planned. Although Pear Deck just completed their $500,000 seed round in December, the Google competition is expressly for startups looking to raise between $1 million and 4 million.

“It definitely helps lend credibility,” said Eynon-Lynch. “Our name is out there now.”

Pear Deck timeline: 

• January 2014: Pear Deck is incorporated after the four co-founders leave Haiku Learning
• March 2014: A closed beta test with 12 schools begins
• April 2014: The co-founders present to investors at i2iowa and speak at Mission Creek 
• May 2014: Pear Deck competes in the Milken-Penn business plan competition in Philadelphia and opens up to more schools nationally
• July 2014: The Iowa Economic Development Authority approves a $100,000 loan to Pear Deck from the Demonstration Fund
• August 2014: Pear Deck is named ‘New Startup of the Year' at the Silicon Prairie Awards
• September 2014: The company wins $25,000 in the John Pappajohn Iowa Business Plan Competition, and launches the publicly-available version of Pear Deck globally
• October 2014: Pear Deck is one of nine Iowa companies to pitch to Steve Case when Rise of the Rest visits Des Moines
• December 2014: The co-founders announce the completion of $500k seed round, led by Digital Cowboy Ventures
• January 2015: Pear Deck is accepted to the Village Capital EdTech accelerator
• February 2015: The company is named a finalist for LaunchEDU at South By Southwest, and is nominated for two Prometheus Awards by the Technology Association of Iowa
• March 2015: Pear Deck wins $150,000 from Steve Case at the Rise of the Rest pitch-off at South by Southwest
• April 2015: Pear Deck will present at the Google For Entrepreneurs Demo Day