John Vrionis, a co-founder at seed-stage fund Unusual Ventures, noted that “over 50% of our founders remain in their current positions.”

The fund, having finalized a $400 million investment fund in November 2019, has observed a growing number of startup employees considering launching their own ventures, spurred by the pandemic’s demonstration of opportunities for fresh innovation. To secure a leading position, Unusual is making initial, smaller investments in founders even before they commit to entrepreneurship full-time.

Unusual, which typically makes around eight investments annually in seed-stage businesses, doesn’t provide substantial funding to every employee who chooses to depart from a company like Stripe. The firm manages its resources carefully and adopts a targeted strategy, frequently assigning a team member to work directly within a portfolio company. This approach isn’t designed for rapid expansion to numerous portfolio companies each year, but rather emphasizes a deliberate and systematic process.

This process relies on having a robust selection of companies to evaluate.

During an Extra Crunch Live discussion, Vrionis and Sarah Leary, co-founder of Nextdoor and the firm’s latest partner, emphasized the importance of modest investment amounts during a company’s initial stages.

“Many teams required funding to begin, but accepting $2 or $3 million would have been excessively burdensome,” Leary explained. “[Emerging founders] desire sufficient capital to start, but not so much that they face premature expectations they aren’t prepared to meet.” The pre-seed investments Unusual makes generally fall between $100,000 and $500,000.

Leary attributes the current surge in startup activity to shifts in consumer habits, which create openings for new companies to succeed.

Cleo Capital established a fellowship program to assist individuals impacted by the pandemic in launching new businesses. Similarly, Contrary Capital, which focuses on startups founded by students, developed a program specifically for engineers, designers, and managers at prominent tech companies who are exploring entrepreneurship.

Eric Tarczynski, founder of Contrary, stated that his fund has allocated capital for these prospective founders, and intends to offer support “regardless” of whether they ultimately start a business.

“To be honest, we aren’t anticipating a constant stream of companies on the scale of Facebook,” Tarczynski shared with TechCrunch in July.

While attention is available, founders now need to determine how to attract it. Leary advises founders to leverage the distinct benefits of their experience at larger companies.

“Individuals transitioning from major social media companies may possess valuable insights into improvements and innovations. This insight is particularly crucial,” she stated.

Here’s a video with our entire conversation: