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?

Try Ramp for free
Share with
Alex SongFormer VP of Finance & Capital Markets, Ramp
Alex Song was the founding member of the Ramp Finance team. He helped build out critical infrastructure within the accounting, capital markets, FP&A, and treasury functions, among others. Prior to joining Ramp in 2020, he spent more than a decade as a credit and financials investor in the hedge fund industry, working at firms including Sculptor Capital Management, Crayhill Capital Management, Bain Capital, and Morgan Stanley. Alex holds two Bachelor's degrees from Stanford, in Biomechanical Engineering and in Economics. He also holds a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School. Alex is a CFA charterholder.
Ramp is dedicated to helping businesses of all sizes make informed decisions. We adhere to strict editorial guidelines to ensure that our content meets and maintains our high standards.

When our teams need something, they usually need it right away. The more time we can save doing all those tedious tasks, the more time we can dedicate to supporting our student-athletes.

Sarah Harris

Secretary, The University of Tennessee Athletics Foundation, Inc.

How Tennessee built a championship-caliber back office with Ramp

Ramp had everything we were looking for, and even things we weren't looking for. The policy aspects, that's something I never even dreamed of that a purchasing card program could handle.

Doug Volesky

Director of Finance, City of Mount Vernon

City of Mount Vernon addresses budget constraints by blocking non-compliant spend, earning cash back with Ramp

Switching from Brex to Ramp wasn’t just a platform swap—it was a strategic upgrade that aligned with our mission to be agile, efficient, and financially savvy.

Lily Liu

CEO, Piñata

How Piñata halved its finance team’s workload after moving from Brex to Ramp

With Ramp, everything lives in one place. You can click into a vendor and see every transaction, invoice, and contract. That didn’t exist in Zip. It’s made approvals much faster because decision-makers aren’t chasing down information—they have it all at their fingertips.

Ryan Williams

Manager, Contract and Vendor Management, Advisor360°

How Advisor360° cut their intake-to-pay cycle by 50%

The ability to create flexible parameters, such as allowing bookings up to 25% above market rate, has been really good for us. Plus, having all the information within the same platform is really valuable.

Caroline Hill

Assistant Controller, Sana Benefits

How Sana Benefits improved control over T&E spend with Ramp Travel

More vendors are allowing for discounts now, because they’re seeing the quick payment. That started with Ramp—getting everyone paid on time. We’ll get a 1-2% discount for paying early. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you’re dealing with hundreds of millions of dollars, it does add up.

James Hardy

CFO, SAM Construction Group

How SAM Construction Group LLC gained visibility and supported scale with Ramp Procurement

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

How Poshmark exceeded its free cash flow goals with Ramp

I was shocked at how easy it was to set up Ramp and get our end users to adopt it. Our prior procurement platform took six months to implement, and it was a lot of labor. Ramp was so easy it was almost scary.

Michael Natsch

Procurement Manager, AIRCO

“Here to stay:” How AIRCO consolidated procurement, AP, and spend to gain control with Ramp