

Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), the financial institution that has served the tech industry for more than 35 years, has recently been the subject of quite a bit of controversy revolving around a failed funding round, a bank run, forced receivership, and now acquisition and asset sales. SVB, which has funded more than 30,000 startups and invested in numerous tech unicorns, is a major player in the industry. The speculation regarding an acquisition has led to several questions and concerns from both the industry and SVB's stakeholders.
Throughout the past few days, intense deliberations centered around possible bail-out or acquisition options for the struggling SVB. In a joint effort, the US Treasury, Federal Reserve, and FDIC agreed to safeguard and insure the deposits of impacted SVB customers, concurrently pursuing potential buyers for the company or its assets. Despite these endeavors, the complex nature of SVB's balance sheet, containing unconventional assets like private loans against private company stock, wineries, and other esoteric assets may have hindered the identification of a prospective buyer by Tuesday morning.
As of Tuesday morning, speculation that Apollo and other private equity firms are looking to buy some of these assets, with the support of a number of venture capital firms. However, from a strategic perspective the best natural acquirer for SVB may be another, larger bank. The reason is quite simply the fact that its complex pool of loans will be hard to maintain and service if the acquirer didn’t already have significant servicing capabilities. As of Tuesday, it appears that SVB is back open for business, with accounts more or less fully functional. More importantly, it seems like existing venture debt lines are still active and being drawn down. The ultimate question for the start up and venture community is: will the ultimate acquirer of SVB continue to fund these styles of loans and continue to provide the start up community with debt capital?

“We’ve simplified our workflows while improving accuracy, and we are faster in closing with the help of automation. We could not have achieved this without the solutions Ramp brought to the table.”
Kaustubh Khandelwal
VP of Finance, Poshmark

“Our previous bill pay process probably took a good 10 hours per AP batch. Now it just takes a couple of minutes between getting an invoice entered, approved, and processed.”
Jason Hershey
VP of Finance and Accounting, Hospital Association of Oregon

“When looking for a procure-to-pay solution we wanted to make everyone’s life easier. We wanted a one-click type of solution, and that’s what we’ve achieved with Ramp.”
Mandy Mobley
Finance Invoice & Expense Coordinator, Crossings Community Church

“We no longer have to comb through expense records for the whole month — having everything in one spot has been really convenient. Ramp's made things more streamlined and easy for us to stay on top of. It's been a night and day difference.”
Fahem Islam
Accounting Associate, Snapdocs

“It's great to be able to park our operating cash in the Ramp Business Account where it earns an actual return and then also pay the bills from that account to maximize float.”
Mike Rizzo
Accounting Manager, MakeStickers

“The practice managers love Ramp, it allows them to keep some agency for paying practice expenses. They like that they can instantaneously attach receipts at the time of transaction, and that they can text back-and-forth with the automated system. We've gotten a lot of good feedback from users.”
Greg Finn
Director of FP&A, Align ENTA

“The reason I've been such a super fan of Ramp is the product velocity. Not only is it incredibly beneficial to the user, it’s also something that gives me confidence in your ability to continue to pull away from other products.”
Tyler Bliha
CEO, Abode
