Day One Ventures is looking to invest in companies with laid-off founders, in an effort to benefit from their experience.
The tech industry is going through quite a bit of upheaval, with companies throughout the industry implementing hiring freezes and layoffs. Some companies, such as Meta, are engaging in the biggest layoffs in their history.
Day One Ventures wants to help some of those laid-off employees land on their feet, while benefiting from their previous experience. According to CNBC, the company has committed to making $100,000 investments in 20 startups with at least one founding member having been laid off from a tech company.
“VC investors are sitting on billions of dollars, and now we have thousands of talented people in engineering, salespeople, support staff and other functions looking for new job opportunities — so why not direct some of this money towards them?” founder Masha Bucher, who has been laid off twice herself, told CNBC.
“Being laid off was the best thing that ever happened to me,” she says, calling the experience a “wake-up call” that led to full-time entrepreneurship.
Startups that qualify for the firm’s “Funded, Not Fired” program can apply here.