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All the talk with regards to funding is generally focussed around either bootstrapping with customer revenue from day 1, and/or taking funding from angels and V

by axefrog 14y ago

All the talk with regards to funding is generally focussed around either bootstrapping with customer revenue from day 1, and/or taking funding from angels and VCs. Where does Silicon Valley Bank fit into the picture? I've basically never seen any blog posts, dicussions or articles advising of the pros and cons of going down this route. Any suggestions or experiences to share?

swombat 14y ago
A corporate bank's primary purpose is easily stated as: to help its customers manage and raise money. Traditionally, this has included both equity funding and debt funding. Banks will help with public offerings, and with issuing bonds - or loaning directly from the bank's cash pile. Most established businesses use some amount of loans to "leverage" their business. Some smaller (and even larger) businesses even depend on the loans to operate day to day. However, startups normally don't get access to this type of money, because banks see them as far too risky. SVB presumably has its own custom risk models and procedures to deal with startups, which enables them to loan money to startups even though most banks wouldn't. Why would a startup want to get a loan rather than raising some money? Because borrowing money is about a billion times better/cheaper than selling a chunk of the company, that's why. This won't be replacing seed funding - that's always going to be too risky for a bank, which needs most of its money to be repaid with interest - but for startups with sustainable revenues and growth, SVB can presumably come to a sensible analysis as to whether this company will be able to service its debt, and so make a loan where a traditional bank wouldn't, in a growth funding situation. And the startup would be stupid not to raise at least part of their growth funding with a loan rather than selling more equity, if they can.

by axefrog 14y ago

swombat 14y ago

A corporate bank's primary purpose is easily stated as: to help its customers manage and raise money. Traditionally, this has included both equity funding and debt funding. Banks will help with public offerings, and with issuing bonds - or loaning directly from the bank's cash pile. Most established businesses use some amount of loans to "leverage" their business. Some smaller (and even larger) businesses even depend on the loans to operate day to day. However, startups normally don't get access to this type of money, because banks see them as far too risky. SVB presumably has its own custom risk models and procedures to deal with startups, which enables them to loan money to startups even though most banks wouldn't. Why would a startup want to get a loan rather than raising some money? Because borrowing money is about a billion times better/cheaper than selling a chunk of the company, that's why. This won't be replacing seed funding - that's always going to be too risky for a bank, which needs most of its money to be repaid with interest - but for startups with sustainable revenues and growth, SVB can presumably come to a sensible analysis as to whether this company will be able to service its debt, and so make a loan where a traditional bank wouldn't, in a growth funding situation. And the startup would be stupid not to raise at least part of their growth funding with a loan rather than selling more equity, if they can.