The author is a associate at Sequoia Capital

Not a lot suggests a connection between Siena, essentially the most majestic of Tuscany’s hill cities, and the flatlands of Santa Clara, 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 grow to be painfully apparent through 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 grew to become identified — gained a popularity for being a pillar of the expertise 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 all the way down to grow 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 help. 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 essential enterprise associate. Till this week we all the time really useful 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 corporations exterior the US to kind a US firm, used SVB as its financial institution. (Sequoia is Stripe’s largest investor.) Earlier than SVB sprang to life, it was troublesome, if not unattainable, for a start-up to safe a relationship with a big, established financial institution. Small west coast expertise corporations have been incomprehensible or insignificant to the big east coast banks whose prospects included worldwide airways, heavy business and nationwide retailers. Our corporations, usually began by individuals of their twenties, have been bypassed or ignored.

As expertise crept into each crevice of the financial system, SVB steadily adopted. The financial institution opened places of work the place the entrepreneurial bug was alive — each within the US and abroad. Like all of us, SVB has had its ups and downs, nevertheless it has largely caught to its knitting and its fortunes have mirrored these of the start-up financial system.

In a perverse manner, SVB has paid a worth for its loyalty. A lot will probably be stated concerning 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 have been expertise corporations — a drop within the bucket for the massive banks.

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

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

I’m positive many will look upon its demise and the ungodly quantity of fear-mongering on social media and chuckle gleefully about how the expertise business simply acquired a spanking. So be it. We’re not searching for particular therapy or handouts. If a financial institution fails — even whether it is our financial institution — that’s the worth we pay for residing in an financial 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 meet their payrolls and different obligations, the US maintain on any variety of groundbreaking applied sciences will probably 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 expertise corporations and the vitality of the start-up financial system will probably be again within the arms of strangers, and the US will probably be all of the poorer.