What was Silicon Valley Financial institution to the world of startups and enterprise capital? Virtually every part.
Conceived over a poker recreation between two of its founders almost 40 years in the past, the agency grew into the only most important monetary establishment for the nascent tech scene, serving half of all venture-backed firms within the US and 44% of the venture-backed know-how and health-care firms that went public final yr. And its choices have been huge – starting from normal checking accounts, to VC funding, to loans, to foreign money threat administration.
The financial institution says by itself web site: “There are numerous methods to explain us. ‘Financial institution’ is only one.”
Because the world begins to evaluate the fallout of the largest financial institution collapse because the 2008 monetary disaster, listed here are the varied methods the financial institution of Silicon Valley stretched its tentacles across the tech business and past.
A Banker
SVB’s most evident providers concerned conventional banking. It provided the same old checking accounts, bank cards and cash market accounts with as much as 4.5% annual proportion yield. The agency additionally helped retailers settle for funds for gross sales, subject invoices, handle subscriptions and set up recurring billing.
An Investor’s Investor
One essential reality to bear in mind as SVB’s failure ripples throughout industries is that the financial institution was an investor in its personal proper. The corporate’s enterprise capital and credit score funding arm has instantly invested in a number of fund managers and portfolio firms for greater than 20 years. The companies which have benefited from its cash embody: Sequoia Capital, Accel, Kleiner Perkins, Ribbit Capital, Spark Capital and Greylock.
The financial institution’s world fund mortgage banking e-book was comprised of 56% of loans to enterprise capital and personal fairness companies as of the top of final yr. How that may have an effect on VC companies themselves is unclear.
A Lender
SVB was a pioneer of what’s often known as enterprise debt, a kind of mortgage provided by banks and nonbank lenders particularly designed for early-stage, high-growth firms with VC backing. The overwhelming majority of VC-backed firms now increase debt in some unspecified time in the future from banks reminiscent of SVB. Amongst its different lending options have been mortgage lending, personal stock-based lending and companion traces of credit score for firms. Its lending providers prolonged to a bunch of nonprofits together with constitution colleges, personal schools and mission-based organizations.
A Wealth Supervisor
Along with being a lender for startups, SVB additionally took care of their executives, offering personal banking and wealth administration providers together with monetary and tax planning and residential fairness traces of credit score.
A Monetary Adviser
The financial institution’s securities division caters to healthcare and tech-focused firms with providers together with M&A advisory, fairness and debt capital markets, proprietary analysis and gross sales and buying and selling. The corporate includes a listing on its web site of greater than 1,000 transactions it has been concerned in – together with as joint bookrunner, unique monetary adviser and sole placement agent. It has lengthy prided itself in being a one-stop store for startups from launch, to seed feeding, to enterprise rounds, to main acquisitions and IPOs. “You will not outgrow SVB,” the financial institution says on its web site.
A Networker
As soon as a startup is part of the SVB “ecosystem,” it features entry to a bunch of occasions that deliver collectively traders, different founders and other people within the startup scene. For many years, it was arduous to discover a main startup occasion that SVB wasn’t a sponsor of – one in every of its many efforts that so deeply embedded the financial institution into the very material of startup world that some founders felt compelled to do enterprise with the agency.
Sarika Bajaj, chief government officer of early-stage startup Refiberd, mentioned she selected SVB to strengthen the legitimacy of her enterprise. “Everybody was like, ‘Oh you need to do SVB, in any other case individuals are sketched out when you do not,'” she mentioned.
A Vineyard Backer
One very California-centric function that SVB performed: Serving as the highest monetary providers supplier to premium wine producers, principally in Napa Valley, Sonoma County and Central Coast areas, but additionally within the Pacific Northwest.
A Overseas Alternate Threat Hedger
Among the many lesser identified providers the financial institution provided was managing foreign money threat for firms that do enterprise internationally. SVB boasted that it might hedge in opposition to volatility throughout greater than 90 currencies with groups that cater particularly to non-public fairness funds, seed and enterprise capital, late- and early-stage tech and well being care companies.
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