A year after imploding, Silicon Valley Bank tries to make a comeback
Summary
SAN FRANCISCO — The ads loom over commuters and tourists, plastered with the colorful brand of what many here in the tech industry’s capital city thought was a company consigned to the dustbin of history. It’s under new management, and now owned by North Carolina-based First Citizens Bank, which bought its deposits and branches out of bankruptcy weeks after SVB crumbled in March 2023. Some of that is due to the general downturn in Silicon Valley, where it’s become difficult for start-ups to raise money because of higher interest rates and bigger tech companies slowing down their spending on software. In 2020 and 2021, low interest rates and consumer demand for internet entertainment, work-from-home tools and new laptops led to a tech industry boom. Politicians in Washington were skeptical about bailing out the start-ups who had lost their money in the bank failure, asking why taxpayers should rescue what many in the country saw as a group of rich and arrogant techies.