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Hybrid entrepreneurs who retain salaried or academic roles are often viewed as insufficiently committed by investors. Yet, maintaining a hybrid employment status can also be a strategic pathway into high-growth venturing. Drawing on Role Congruity Theory, we examine how Venture Capital funds and angel investors evaluate hybrid founders and how founders adapt over time. Using 17 semi-structured interviews with investors and hybrid entrepreneurs in two European ecosystems and two longitudinal case studies of research-intensive ventures, we inductively theorize hybrid venturing as a congruity alignment trajectory and derive propositions linking investor role expectations, founder adaptation, and ecosystem support structures.
Baloutsos et al. (Mon,) studied this question.