The most prominent former Facebook executives turned investors include Sean Parker, Dustin Moskovitz, Dave Morin, Matt Cohler, Adam D'Angelo and Chamath Palihapitiya.
Parker, Facebook's first president, invested in music- sharing site Spotify, while Moskovitz left to start software maker Asana Inc. and invested in mobile application makers Path Inc. and Flipboard.
D'Angelo started Quora Inc. and, along with Cohler of Benchmark Capital, invested in Instagram, the photo-sharing app that Facebook agreed to buy for $1 billion. In March, Parker, Moskovitz and Morin, the founder of Path, invested together in software company NationBuilder.
"Facebook is the 'it' company that everyone wants to make sure they can capitalize on," said Sonja Hoel Perkins, a partner at Menlo Ventures in Menlo Park. Areas where Facebook employees can help are "integration with Facebook, making sure the social aspects of their business are working or knowing the relevant people," she said.
Plenty Of Capital
For hot startups like those in the Y Combinator incubator program, there's no shortage of available capital. In addition to the $18,000 on average that Y Combinator invests, each company has access to $150,000 from the Start Fund, a group that includes Andreessen Horowitz, Ron Conway and Yuri Milner. Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, is an investor in Andreessen Horowitz.
Beyond that, investors are lining up to get in on the first institutional fundraising round.
"It's really good for people like us," said Ajay Mehta, co-founder of Palo Alto-based social-network site FamilyLeaf, one of 65 companies that went through the three-month Y Combinator course earlier this year. "People that wouldn't have previously invested now are, so it makes founders less desperate."
'Fierce Interest'
Hear It Local, a San Francisco startup focused on the music industry, raised $250,000 from a group of 10 angel investors in the last year and is preparing to raise more funding. The company is deciding between an early-stage firm and some high- profile angels, said co-founder Matt Lombardi. Part of that financing will go to help build a new Facebook app, he said.