We’ve been fans of Eric Martell since he first landed in Minnesota. From the beginning, it was clear he had a rare mix of technical depth, product vision, and leadership grit. After helping build Gener8tor’s local presence, he and Alex Wyler co-founded Pear Commerce—a company born out of frustration with how broken CPG advertising had become.
Great North Ventures backed Pear early in Fund I (2019). Coming from performance marketing and ad tech ourselves, we instantly understood the gap: brands were spending heavily on ads, yet consumers faced too many clicks, broken links, and out-of-stock pages before they could actually buy. Pear’s solution was refreshingly pragmatic, fast-moving, and transformative. We steadily increased our investment as it became clear Pear had the potential to reshape the industry.
This week marks a milestone. Pear Commerce has officially launched a partnership with Pinterest to power native “where-to-buy” links within Pinterest Ads Manager. For CPG brands, this unlocks a seamless, one-click shopping journey—ads now link directly to in-stock products across 3,000+ retailers and 165,000+ stores. Consumers get convenience and choice, while brands gain lower-funnel insights and higher-quality engagement without the trade-offs of legacy ad flows.
Pinterest’s early testing already shows campaigns with Pear-powered links are outperforming traditional landing pages across engagement and conversion metrics. Even better, any advertiser on Pinterest can now access this functionality—whether or not they’re a Pear customer.
For Eric and the Pear team, this is just the beginning. Their technology is quietly powering one of the most significant breakthroughs for massive CPG performance spend in online advertising. For us, it’s a reminder of why we believed in Pear from the very start: pragmatic, curious, fast-moving founders who don’t just spot broken systems—they fix them.
For more information see the full release at Pinterest’s newsrooom.
