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☆ 27 fintechs that could be acquisition targets, and the firms that might buy them, according to VCs, investment bankers, and analysts
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-10 | by ( Paige Hagy | Bianca Chan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Why it's on the market: SMB lenders saw valuations skyrocket during the pandemic years fueled by cash-strapped businesses struggling to secure loans amid tightening lending requirements. "These sorts of businesses almost certainly got way over their skis on valuation," a partner at a California-based venture firm, told Insider. SMB lenders are potential acqui-hires or acquisition targets unless they can raise more capital, according to one New York-based partner at a large venture firm. A spokesperson for Pipe cited the fintech's hiring of Luke Voiles, a former Square and Intuit executive, as CEO earlier this year. Both experts expect to see consolidation throughout the segment, with larger consumer and SMB lenders like Ramp and Brex as potential buyers.

☆ ChatGPT and pickleball are in. Crypto and Meta are out: What's hot in tech this year
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-09 | by ( Lakshmi Varanasi | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

San FranciscoThe AI boom is helping to bring San Francisco back after the pandemic. Dan Kurtzman/Getty ImagesDuring the pandemic, the San Francisco metro area ceded some of its dominance over the tech industry to growing hubs in cities like Miami and Austin. The neighborhood of Hayes Valley, in particular, has become such a hotspot for new AI startups that it's jokingly been renamed "Cerebral Valley." Four Bay Area-based tech workers told Insider that they're going in to meet colleagues, grab coffees, or just get out of their apartments. Security card swipe data also shows that office occupancy in the San Francisco metro area has increased since the beginning of the year.

☆ Analysis: Israel's tech sector reels from SVB collapse, proposed judicial reform
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-03 | by ( Steven Scheer | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

In an industry of around 400,000 there are currently around 6,000 vacant tech jobs, according to government data. More than half of the country's startups held an account with SVB, companies and venture capital investors said, in some cases their only U.S. banking facility although the amounts involved are not fully known. Tech companies and investors alike said SVB was a rarity in the banking industry, familiar with Israel's tech ecosystem and offering loan terms unmatched by other banks. Citing the judicial reforms, Adam Fisher, a partner at investment firm Bessemer Venture Partners, said fewer American banks may be willing to lend to Israeli companies, which means less competition and more onerous terms. Israel's tech companies are therefore likely to flock to register as U.S. companies, while keeping R&D back home, said Yaron Samid, managing partner of the TechAviv Founder Partners fund.

☆ Base10 Partners is offering its limited partners direct access to investing in unicorn startups in order to compete against VC firms with much bigger funds. Here's how.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( April Joyner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Limited partners, the investors that back VC firms, are seeking out more direct deals in startups. But often LPs don't get in until long after the VC firms have invested, so they get smaller returns. VC firm Base10 Partners has launched a program to give LPs earlier access and more upside. As the exuberance in venture capital has crashed to a halt, the institutions that back VC firms, known as limited partners, have had plenty to grouse about. The VC firm Base10 Partners seeks to offer its own limited partners a remedy to this dilemma.

☆ Many Startups Operate Without a CFO. That Was a Challenge as SVB Collapsed
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Anna Mutoh | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Silicon Valley Bank marketed itself to startups, which may have leaned more heavily on it for financial guidance in the absence of an in-house chief financial officer. When Kevin Lee on the morning of March 9 first heard that Silicon Valley Bank could be in trouble, the 32-year-old co-founder of Immi instant ramen frantically called his partner. “I’m concerned there will be a bank run,” Mr. Lee said he told Kevin Chanthasiriphan , 34, who soon after wired their entire $15 million in capital out of SVB and into fintech provider Brex Inc. where they also had a business account. Messrs. Lee and Chanthasiriphan, who call themselves the “the Kevins,” launched Immi three years ago, reinventing ramen as a low-carb, high-protein and fully plant-based instant food. Just a week before the run on SVB, the Kevins announced a $10 million series A funding that included a bevy of celebrity investors such as tennis player Naomi Osaka , R&B singer Usher and speedskater Apolo Ohno , and were poised for a period of rapid growth with revenue up sixfold last year.

☆ Deposit drain from smaller banks into financial giants like JPMorgan Chase has slowed, sources say
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-25 | by ( Hugh Son | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

First Republic Bank headquarters is seen on March 16, 2023 in San Francisco, California, United States. Tayfun Coskun | Anadolu Agency | Getty ImagesWearing many hatsThe dynamic has put big banks like JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs in the awkward position of playing multiple roles simultaneously in this crisis. JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo representatives declined to comment for this article. "There's been a lot of ins and outs, but people are still putting money into the big banks." While the deposit flight from smaller banks has slowed, the past few weeks have exposed a glaring weakness in how some have managed their balance sheets.

☆ I used GPT4 to build two new video games after ChatGPT helped me write a children's book. It makes coding approachable — even if it seems like it's only half-listening.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-25 | by ( Lakshmi Varanasi | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Ammaar Reshi a self-described "novice coder" used GPT-4 to code two games in JavaScript. He said GPT-4 makes coding more approachable even if it requires some trial and error. Building a game just takes imagination and a promptThe first game I built was a snake game, which is a sort of classic arcade game. Coding with GPT-4 sort feels like talking to someone who's only half-listening to you. I used code from another AI assistant called Claude to get the spaceship moving again.

☆ Investors in venture funds reveal how they felt VCs handled the Silicon Valley Bank fallout: one was privately frustrated, while another was impressed
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-19 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | Ben Bergman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

After last week's bank run on SVB, many limited partners for VC funds had lots of questions. One LP was unhappy with how VCs in the funds they back handled the SVB crisis. Some LPs are wary of the tech industry's heavy reliance on the bank. But after last week's bank run on Silicon Valley Bank, caused in large part by warnings from several prominent VCs to their portfolio companies to get their money out of the bank, LPs have mixed feelings about how it all went down. "There were a lot of fintech companies in particular, and banking companies that banded together to come up with solutions overnight."

☆ Founders and VCs reveal why they're sticking with the failed Silicon Valley Bank, at least for now: 'We owe them to keep them healthy'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-18 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | Samantha Stokes | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

But for some startup customers of the failed Silicon Valley Bank, there's nothing to fix about their banking situation — yet. After Silicon Valley Bank's ultimate failure on March 10, federal regulators stepped to seize control and announced two days later that all depositors would be made whole. But some founders and VCs, like Shaprio, have chosen to stay with their hometown bank. Although their own business' health comes first, for many, the survival of Silicon Valley Bank is crucial, as a long-standing emblem of the tech community and a figure that welcomed risky startups when traditional institutions turned them down. And Silicon Valley Bank, by being there for 40 years, is the hub of this community, it's the thing the most startups have in common.

Employees have been working around the clock to onboard as many startups as possible in the wake of the implosion of Silicon Valley Bank. Silicon Valley Bank, which had more than $175 billion in deposits and served nearly half of US VC-backed startups, was taken over by US regulators on March 10. "That said, I am worried that this bias towards a Big Four bank is a double-edged sword," Shekar added. "SVB did not think like a big bank. They could understand your operating plan when a big bank would balk at it," Ashley Tyrner, CEO and founder of FarmBoxRX, told Insider.

Greg Becker, who was the longtime CEO of Silicon Valley Bank, pictured last year. "Looks like Silicon Valley Bank is in some deep shit," Uncommon Capital general partner Jamie Quint tweeted. Startup founders scrambled to get their funds out of Silicon Valley Bank after its collapse. Andreessen Horowitz announced this week that it will continue banking with Silicon Valley Bank "for the foreseeable future" but is crafting a longer-term plan to diversify. Even so, he added, "I think we'd be supportive, as they stabilize, for them to be one of many partners that our founders bank with."

That's the question posed by certain members of the Silicon Valley elite who are attributing layoffs to a boom-time phenomenon: over-hiring and "fake" work. A particular view of 'work'This concept of fake work is rooted, at least partly, in political disagreement. Several of the tech figures pushing these ideas lean Republican, in contrast to the left-leaning tech workers they're lambasting. He and others pushing a grind culture are motivated, as tech employees commenting on the workplace app Blind noted. "I think it's a false narrative to say many people do fake work, especially when companies already deploy workplace monitoring tools."

☆ The unintended consequences of remote work
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Paayal Zaveri | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

While remote work offers flexibility, it often comes at the cost of maintaining a work-life balance. Remote work has also made it possible to hire anyone anywhere, which CEOs and hiring managers are starting to realize. Tech companies are offshoring jobs, due to America's broken immigration system, and remote work is making it easier. American tech companies are offshoring jobs, but it isn't all because of remote work. He says remote work led to all of this in the first place.

☆ Fintech company Brex's co-CEO: Next couple weeks are going to be pivotal for our industry
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

In this videoShare Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailFintech company Brex's co-CEO: Next couple weeks are going to be pivotal for our industryHenrique Dubugras, Brex co-CEO, joins 'Closing Bell: Overtime' to discuss the SVB failure and the the impact it could have long term.

☆ The winners and losers of the Silicon Valley Bank failure
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Silicon Valley Bank was taken over by regulators on Friday. These are the biggest winners, and losers, in the wake of the bank failure. Which brings us to the downfall of Silicon Valley Bank. Here's a rundown of who stands to gain, and lose, the most as a result of the fall of Silicon Valley Bank. Silicon Valley Bank's obituary had barely been written before firms were offering to buy up customers' uninsured deposits for as little as 55 cents on the dollar.

☆ 9 startup founders who banked with Silicon Valley Bank share where they're moving their money: 'We will not get caught like this again'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( Samantha Stokes | Stephanie Palazzolo | Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Silicon Valley Bank's failure has left startup founders scrambling for a new home for their money. Last Friday morning, the startup founder Mang-Git Ng zipped up the interstate before sunrise to a Silicon Valley Bank branch in St. Helena, in California's wine country. Ng's plight is similar to countless other founders following the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, who waited with bated breath over the weekend on whether they'd ever get their money back. DiversificationSilicon Valley Bank's collapse could forever change how startups stash their cash, at least two investors told Insider. Silicon Valley Bank had exclusivity clauses with some of its clients, according to a CNBC report, forcing them to use the firm for most or all of their banking services.

☆ OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sent startup six-figure loan to make payroll after Silicon Valley Bank collapse, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-12 | by ( Aaron Mcdade | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is among tech execs giving money to startups after Silicon Valley Bank's collapse. Altman told Reuters startups need money to pay employees and bills while SVB's situation is addressed. SVB, a once-trusted bank for tech and startups, was taken over by regulators Friday. "Sam has been sending stuck startups money today with no docs, just saying 'send me back whatever you can whenever you can'. "Even if SVB can't find a buyer or a loan over the weekend, a lot of the money startups have on deposit will be made available to them," Altman told Reuters.

Friday's dramatic failure of the bank, which focuses on tech startups, was the biggest since the 2008 financial crisis. Even small startups are getting in on the action to help others. Aleem Mawani, founder of Streak, a company with about 30 employees, tweeted Friday he would lend his personal cash free of any terms to other small startups worried about paying staff. Some, including Lowercarbon Capital, have offered loans to portfolio companies that have funds stuck at SVB. Gurson estimated "conservatively" that Altman has given more than $1 million to support other startups in similar need.

☆ A fintech CEO is trying to raise more than $1 billion to fund bridge loans for startups impacted by the Silicon Valley Bank collapse
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-12 | by ( Sam Tabahriti | Aidan Pollard | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Brex CEO Henrique Dubugras is fundraising more than $1 billion in loans for startups affected by the SVB collapse. "We are trying to raise as much capital as we can," a Brex spokesperson told Insider. "As of yesterday, we've received $1.5 billion in requests from nearly 1,000 companies," a spokesperson for Brex told Insider. "The reason we're doing it is obviously we want to support a community, that's very important," Dubugras told TechCrunch. "[T]here are verification processes in place to ensure there is no fraud," a spokesperson told Insider.

That's the question posed by a certain members of the Silicon Valley elite who are attributing layoffs to a boom-time phenomenon: over-hiring and "fake" work. "There's nothing for these people to do — they're really — it's all fake work," he said. A particular view of 'work'This concept of fake work is rooted, at least partly, in political disagreement. Several of the tech figures pushing these ideas lean Republican, in contrast to the left-leaning tech workers they're lambasting. "I think it's a false narrative to say many people do fake work, especially when companies already deploy workplace monitoring tools."

At some Silicon Valley Bank branch locations in California, depositors gathered early Friday to attempt to get their cash out, fearing it could be inaccessible in the coming days. It has had financial relationships with a who’s who of Silicon Valley firms over the years, including Snapchat's parent Snap Inc (SNAP.N). A locked door to a Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) location on Sand Hill Road is seen in Menlo Park, California, U.S. March 10, 2023. A Silicon Valley Bank spokeswoman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment sent Friday. As of Friday, FarmboxRx’s funds were still tied up with Silicon Valley Bank.

☆ A startup founder sat in an airplane bathroom trying to move his company's funds out of Silicon Valley Bank after its collapse. Here's how 7 other founders reacted to the bank's implosion.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-11 | by ( April Joyner | Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Silicon Valley Bank was shut down by US regulators on Friday. It's been a chaotic day for the startup world following the failure of Silicon Valley Bank. Insider spoke with eight startup founders about how they're responding to the crisis. Other founders weren't as fortunate: They still had their company's funds at Silicon Valley Bank as the FDIC announced it had taken control of the bank. A couple of early-stage founders told Insider they did not hold accounts with Silicon Valley Bank.

☆ Fintech startup Brex got billions of dollars in Silicon Valley Bank deposits Thursday, source says
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( Hugh Son | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Fintech startup Brex received billions of dollars in deposits from Silicon Valley Bank customers on Thursday, CNBC has learned. The company, itself a high-flying startup, has benefited after venture capital firms advised their portfolio companies to withdraw funds from Silicon Valley Bank this week. Brex opened thousands of new accounts totaling billions of dollars in inflows on Thursday, said a person with direct knowledge of the situation. Earlier this week, crypto-focused bank Silvergate said it was winding down operations. The exodus of deposits yesterday put increased pressure on SVB, which attempted to raise equity funding earlier this week and had turned to a potential sale, CNBC reported.

☆ SVB rivals pounce, pitching startups on moving their money away from the struggling bank
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( Ben Bergman | Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

With Silicon Valley Bank in crisis, rivals pounced, publicly encouraging tech clients to move their money. SVB lends money to startups and keeps their cash deposits, so they can pay staff and other expenses. If startups are worried the bank can't give them all their money back from their bank accounts, then they might pull their accounts. The banker described their phone ringing off the hook Thursday with panicked startup founders and CEOs desperate to move their money away from SVB. "We also left our own money in SVB," Mark Suster, managing partner at Upfront Ventures tweeted Thursday.

☆ Here's an exclusive look at the pitch deck that Y Combinator alum Opkit, a health insurance verification startup, used to raise funding from investors like Plaid CEO Zach Perret's VC firm
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Opkit is a startup that helps telehealth companies verify and process patient health insurance. Software engineers Sherwood Callaway and Justin Ko first met as early employees at the fintech startup Brex and became fast friends. As more telehealth companies were popping up after the pandemic, they often had issues with quickly processing patient health insurance for care, Callaway told Insider. Opkit also offers providers an insurance dashboard, that allows telehealth employees to perform eligibility checks or inquiries to insurance companies about specific patients' plans. "Opkit was our first experience doing venture fundraising, and Y Combinator really helped us make connections with investors," said Callaway.

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