The author is a accomplice at Sequoia Capital

Not a lot suggests a connection between Siena, probably the most majestic of Tuscany’s hill cities, and the flatlands of Santa Clara, the town in northern California which homes the Nice America theme park and Levi’s stadium, house of the San Francisco 49ers. However there’s a hyperlink and it has turn out to be painfully apparent in the course of the previous few days.

In Siena, the financial institution of Monte dei Paschi di Siena has occupied a pivotal function within the surrounding group since its formation in 1472. In Santa Clara, Silicon Valley Financial institution — or SVB because it turned recognized — gained a popularity for being a pillar of the know-how business, since its opening in 1983.

The historical past and particulars of every financial institution are worlds aside. But, since 2013 when Monte dei Paschi di Siena melted right down to turn out to be a shadow of its former self, the area people has felt the pinch. Companies have discovered it harder to acquire financing and plenty of group organisations have misplaced a supply of significant assist. Each Siena and the encircling countryside are poorer due to the financial institution’s troubles.

For these of us who’ve labored in Silicon Valley for the previous forty years, SVB has been our most vital enterprise accomplice. Till this week we all the time really helpful to founders, after we determined to make a seed or enterprise funding, that they instantly open a checking account at SVB. It’s no coincidence that Stripe’s Atlas programme, which permits firms exterior the US to type a US firm, used SVB as its financial institution. (Sequoia is Stripe’s largest investor.) Earlier than SVB sprang to life, it was tough, if not unimaginable, for a start-up to safe a relationship with a big, established financial institution. Small west coast know-how firms had been incomprehensible or insignificant to the big east coast banks whose prospects included worldwide airways, heavy business and nationwide retailers. Our firms, usually began by folks of their twenties, had been bypassed or ignored.

As know-how crept into each crevice of the economic system, SVB step by step adopted. The financial institution opened workplaces the place the entrepreneurial bug was alive — each within the US and abroad. Like all of us, SVB has had its ups and downs, but it surely has largely caught to its knitting and its fortunes have mirrored these of the start-up economic system.

In a perverse approach, SVB has paid a value for its loyalty. A lot might be stated in regards to the causes for its demise, however few will dwell on what made it particular for these of us in Silicon Valley. SVB stayed near its roots and its prospects. When it collapsed virtually all of its 40,000 prospects had been know-how firms — a drop within the bucket for the massive banks.

SVB was just like the cherished native market the place folks behind the counters know the names of their prospects, have a prepared smile however nonetheless cost the going value once they promote a reduce of meat. When a small tech enterprise bumped into difficulties, we knew we’d get a sympathetic listening to but additionally that we must pay the piper.

Within the broader Silicon Valley group, SVB and its many workers might all the time be counted upon to, quietly and modestly, lend assist to college students making use of to varsity, have a tendency group gardens, provide meals banks, or present companionship to the aged.

I’m certain many will look upon its demise and the ungodly quantity of fear-mongering on social media and chuckle gleefully about how the know-how business simply obtained a spanking. So be it. We aren’t looking for particular therapy or handouts. If a financial institution fails — even whether it is our financial institution — that’s the worth we pay for dwelling in an economic system the place success is rewarded, and mis-steps are punished. But when ample steps aren’t taken to make sure that tens of hundreds of entrepreneurs can not meet their payrolls and different obligations, the US maintain on any variety of groundbreaking applied sciences might be considerably weakened.

But when a group loses its financial institution, whether or not in a Tuscan hill city or on the coast of the Pacific, it’s like having a demise within the household. As soon as once more, the fates of hundreds of small know-how firms and the vitality of the start-up economic system might be again within the palms of strangers, and the US might be all of the poorer.