Silicon Valley Bank treated startup founders like royalty long before their companies ever generated a profit or even raised significant funding.
Generally, it offered among the least-restrictive terms and equally competitive interest rates, entrepreneurs say. If a borrower failed, SVB. Effectively, according to language seen by WIRED, SVB would support companies as long as their venture capital backers, often clients of the bank, did not abandon them. “Bankers become a lifeline when you get into trouble, and if they stand by you, I take that seriously,” says James of his loyalty to the now crushed bank.
“I remember having some unpleasant conversations where I was like, wow, you know, you took a piece of my hide, but my business still survived,” says Zbar, now chief executive of HamsaPay, which uses blockchain for commercial loan financing. He believes other banks are less flexible than SVB. “They just freeze it, and you're done,” he says. Zbar even welcomed his SVB banker as a bachelor-party guest.
SVB fronted cash to people of underrepresented backgrounds trying to buy into venture capital funds, says the investor Craig, who runs Outlander VC. It provided home mortgages to investors early in their careers who couldn’t get them elsewhere, based on a deep understanding of the tech companies its customers were betting on, Craig says. “I really hope they rebuild and reconstitute. No one understood founders and innovators as well as SVB,” he says.
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