Nic Szerman lost his job at Meta Platforms in November, just two months after joining full-time, falling victim to a sweeping 13 per cent reduction of its workforce as the advertising market cratered.
Szerman is part of a wave of would-be entrepreneurs who are emerging from the ashes of the mass job losses seen in Silicon Valley in the second half of 2022, according to venture capitalists. Day One Ventures, an early stage venture fund in San Francisco, launched a new initiative in November to fund startups founded by people who had been laid off from their tech jobs, touting the slogan"Funded, not Fired".
"Looking at the last economic cycle, companies like Stripe, Airbnb, Dropbox have been created in crisis."Also in November, multi-stage fund Index Ventures, which has bankrolled Facebook, Etsy and Skype, launched its second Origins fund, which will invest $300 million in early-stage startups. "I told the investors we'll chat in two or three months," he added."I'll focus on scaling the system now."