Friends of mine who were acquired by VMware used SVB 2010-2015 because their investors preferred it. 20/20 hindsight: they were too niche and not diversified.

Friends of mine who were acquired by VMware used SVB 2010-2015 because their investors preferred it. 20/20 hindsight: they were too niche and not diversified. It would've been a slam-dunk to send out flyers to local property owners in the South Bay Area and Santa Cruz Mountains. For my consulting LLC, I went with Comerica because I figured SVB had the issues of being like a credit union but without CU behind it. If I were in a founder's shoes today, I would stick to a credit union because they're potentially more flexible and it promotes a local co-op rather than a corporation out to monetize customers with an unknown risk profile.