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The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank was an existential crisis for founders like me — one that came out of nowhere and had nothing to do with the strength of our businesses. Overnight, something as basic as access to our own capital was thrown into question.
It exposed a hard truth: much of the startup ecosystem was built on assumptions that had never been truly tested under pressure. Founders were suddenly forced to confront questions most had never seriously considered — how secure their banking relationships really were, how resilient their capital structure was and what would happen if critical institutions stopped behaving predictably.
For me, this wasn’t theoretical. It put a $100 million deal at risk and forced an immediate reset in how I think about fundraising, risk and control. Strategies that made perfect sense in stable markets unraveled quickly. In their place, I had to adopt a different lens — one that prioritizes optionality, redundancy and resilience alongside and maybe even over efficiency and optimization.
A stress test we didn’t choose
When Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, the first concerns were immediate. Could we access our cash? Could we make payroll? Could the business continue operating without disruption?
At the time, I was running my first startup, a fintech company helping young families build savings for their children. Operating in a regulated financial system meant our business depended on banks for far more than deposits. We relied on them for payments, custody, credit facilities and core operations. SVB was deeply embedded in that infrastructure.
The timing of SVB’s collapse made the impact sharper. My company was in the middle of an active M&A process, with multiple potential acquirers and ongoing management discussions.
That momentum stalled almost immediately on our $100 million-plus deal. Our investment banker advised us to expect broad delays across fintech transactions, potentially stretching timelines by a year or more. Valuation expectations reset, and the likelihood of closing changed overnight, not because our business had changed, but because the environment had.
What began as an operational crisis quickly forced founders like me to confront structural realities they hadn’t needed to navigate before.
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