[praecipula]

I think this is a great idea - exchanging money, I'm not so sure. If everyone's trying to get funding, not a lot of cash to go around.

If, however, you worked out a shared-talent pool, that has a lot of potential. For example, often times startups don't need operations or HR staff right away, it's done by the founders. However, when it comes time to use more talented staff, what if one startup employed the person, but the pool can share their talent for an equity exchange? Seems like there are details to work out, but might be a good opportunity both for startups and for staff who would like to be in at the ground level, but there's not enough demand at any one company.