Silicon Valley Bank seizure leaves a massive hole — and a large opportunity — in the world of climate finance
A view of Silicon Valley Bank headquarters in Santa Clara, CA, after the federal government intervened upon the bankâs collapse, on March 13, 2023.
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Silicon Valley Bank was the go-to for startups seeking bankers who understood the startup life and balance sheets. That was especially true for the cohort of startups being built and scaled to address climate change.
After a very stressful weekend for many startup founders and investors, banking regulators hatched a plan to backstop SVB’s deposits, ensuring that depositors won’t lose their money.
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Founded in 1983 specifically to help startups, SVB had a strong and established business in climate, boasting 1,550 climate tech and sustainability clients, according to its website.
“Silicon Valley Bank had a very good reputation in the energy transition space and were willing to put their money where their mouth is, unlike many of their peers,” said Mona Dajani, the head of renewable energy and infrastructure law at Shearman and Sterling.
“Many clean energy companies banked with SVB because they had an established and dedicated clean energy practice and they were perceived to have more experience in the clean energy space than most regional and big bulge bracket peers,” Dajani told CNBC.
But the climate space has grown up since SVB started, and that paves the way for new lenders to serve the market.
“Fundamentally, the companies that are coming out climate right now have real strength. These are foundational companies, and people are going to want to lend to them because it’s good business,” explained Katie Rae, the CEO of The Engine, an accelerator and venture fund focusing on tough tech, including climate startups.
“Just in the last three days, I probably have 50 emails in my inbox from different providers saying, ‘Hey, I know SVB is not in good shape. We also do venture debt.’ So many are going to emerge,” Rae told CNBC in a phone conversation on Tuesday.
Wind turbines operate at a wind farm, a key power source for the Coachella Valley, on February 22, 2023 near Whitewater, California.
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Understanding how startups work
Venture-backed startups are an unusual type of business. In their early stages, they may not have cash flow, revenues, or even customers. Instead, they rely on venture funding, where investors offer cash in exchange for equity, hoping that the startups prove out their technology, find customers, and eventually grow into giants.
Providing banking to those kinds of customers requires special skills and an appetite for risk.
“Nobody understands startups as well as Silicon Valley Bank and how to lend to them,” says Zachary Bogue, a long-time tech investor and cofounder of DCVC.
“I envision a startup’s application getting simplify annihilated by a big bank’s risk committee,” Bogue told CNBC.
That was exactly Bill Clerico‘s experience back in May 2009. When Clerico moved to Silicon Valley with Rich Aberman to grow their fintech company, WePay, they had a Bank of America small business account, but the account didn’t have the services the startup needed.
“Silicon Valley Bank understood that even though we may have only had $10,000 or so in deposits at the time, we had a lot of potential,” Clerico told CNBC.
As it turned out, SVB was right to bet on Clerico. WePay was acquired by JP Morgan Chase in December 2017.
“That early investment in our relationship paid off,” Clerico told CNBC. “Over time our deposit balances grew to hundreds of millions, we borrowed millions from them in venture debt, and we processed billions through their accounts.”
In Jan. 2022, Clerico launched Convective Capital, a $35 million venture capital fund investing in wildfire technolog. He ardently hopes somebody can fill the gap left by SVB.
“Some folks may conflate their balance-sheet-driven meltdown with the failure of this startup-focused business model — but in fact, I think that banking startups continues to be a great business and a role that someone needs to fill,” Clerico told CNBC. (Notably, Clerico is an angel investor in Mercury, a startup working to meet this need.)
“I hope SVB and their business model persists in some form,” Clerico said.
The ‘1,000-pound gorilla’ of venture debt lending
In the climate tech ecosystem, SVB was especially prominent in making loans to companies with venture capital funding, known as “venture debt.” It’s essential for startups who are still not generating enough cash flow to be self-sustainable, especially when they are between funding rounds.
“It adds a little bit to the capital that they’ve raised, extends their runway a little bit and gives them more time to make progress on their business,” Rae told CNBC. Venture debt can add between three to six months to the runway companies already have, Rae said.
“There are other places that do venture debt, but Silicon Valley Bank was the 1,000-pound gorilla in the room,” said Ami Kassar, the CEO of the business lending consultant Multifunding.
“The concern now is that even in instances where deposits are made whole, the credit facilities for companies with SVB are likely no longer available, and this is a sector where those are critical,” said Dajani.
That said, making loans to venture-backed companies is a riskier endeavor than traditional banking, Kassar told CNBC.
“I always wondered how they managed to have the regulators allow them to have such a heavy concentration of venture debt,” Kassar said.
Solar panels are set up in the solar farm at the University of California, Merced, in Merced, California, August 17, 2022.
Nathan Frandino | Reuters
Climate is good business
SVB was an early supporter of climate technology, helping a lot of these companies get off the ground. But as the sector has matured, participants believe other financiers will be more willing to lend to these companies.
“Silicon Valley Bank’s early support and commitment to supporting climate tech startups certainly helped catalyze the enormous migration of capital that you’re now seeing deployed into the sector,” Adam Braun, a founder of the climate startup Climate Club, told CNBC.
For instance, SVB provided financing to 60% of community solar projects, says Kiran Bhatraju, the CEO of Arcadia, a climate technology company that, among many services, helps people connect to community solar projects.
In this, the bank “was a climate bank pioneer,” said Steph Speirs, co-founder and CEO of Solstice Power Technologies, which has built a technology to help connect people to community solar projects.
“But renewables have come a long way in the last decade and there’s now a much wider universe of potential financiers looking to get on board,” Speirs said.
That’s what Braun expects to see, too.
“I believe we’ll see many more institutions build dedicated climate practices and funds to support startups emerging in this space,” Braun told CNBC. “While SVB may have been a first mover, I don’t think the events of last week will diminish the desire to finance and support the emerging companies that are leading the rapidly growing climate tech sector forward.”
First Republic and JP Morgan are “increasingly making this category a priority,” Chauncy Hamilton, a partner at the venture capital firm XYZ, told CNBC. “More and more banks are paying attention to climate,” Hamilton said.
Mark Casady, a founder of the venture capital firm Vestigo Ventures, agrees.
“Climate solutions are too powerful a force to be stopped by the failure of a bank. The need is critical and time is not on our side to find solutions. Since this is a fundamental need, it will get more backing rather than less,” Casady told CNBC.
That transition will take time, however. And for companies working to combat global warming, time is the ultimate enemy.
“I do expect big banks to ultimately step up and provide the financing the industry needs to move forward — these projects are just too attractive and the promise of climate tech is too great. But it will take some time, and delays can be costly in the fight against climate change,” Bhatraju told CNBC.
“With all the new investment in climate tech and the opportunities ahead afforded by the IRA [Inflation Reduction Act], there is a ton of momentum. We don’t want to lose that,” Bhatranju said.
United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying the first two demonstration satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband internet constellation stands ready for launch on pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on October 5, 2023 in Cape Canaveral, Florida, United States.
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Amazon delayed the launch of its Kuiper internet satellites due to poor weather conditions on Wednesday night.
A United Launch Alliance rocket carrying 27 Kuiper satellites was set to lift off from a launchpad in Cape Canaveral, Florida, but ULA said it couldn’t continue countdown operations as “stubborn cumulus clouds” and heavy winds pushed the launch outside its planned window, according to a livestream.
“Weather is observed and forecast NO GO for liftoff within the remaining launch window at Cape Canaveral this evening,” ULA said. The company said it will provide a new launch date at a later point.
Six years ago Amazon unveiled its plans to build a constellation of internet satellites in low Earth orbit, a region of space that’s within 1,200 miles of Earth’s surface. The company aims to sell high-speed, low-latency internet to consumers, corporations and governments, offering connections through square-shaped terminals. Commercial service is expected to come online later this year.
Amazon is racing to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink, the dominant player in the market, with 8,000 satellites already up in the air. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk now has a central role in the White House as one of President Donald Trump’s top advisors, overseeing the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Since Musk took on the role, Starlink’s footprint has increased within the federal government.
The clock is ticking for Amazon to meet a deadline set by the Federal Communications Commission, which requires the company to have half of its total constellation, or 1,618 satellites, up in the air by July 2026.
Once it completes its first launch, Amazon expects to ramp up its production, processing and deployment rates. It’s begun prepping satellites for its next mission, which will also hitch a ride on one of ULA’s Atlas V rockets.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai meets with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Warsaw, Poland, on February 13, 2025.
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Google has reversed a policy forbidding employees from discussing its antitrust woes following a settlement with workers.
The company sent a notice to U.S. employees last week saying it rescinded “the rule requesting that workers refrain from commenting internally or externally about the on-going antitrust lawsuit filed against Google by the U.S. Department of Justice,” according to correspondence viewed by CNBC.
Google settled with the Alphabet Workers Union, which represents company employees and contractors, according to the U.S. National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB. The settlement and policy reversal mark a major victory for Google staffers, who have seen increased censorship on subjects such as politics, litigation and defense contracts by the search giant since 2019.
The U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google in 2020, alleging that the company has kept its share of the general search market by creating strong barriers to entry and a feedback loop that sustained its dominance.
Google said it “will not announce or maintain overbroad rules or policies that restrict your right to comment, internally or externally, about whether and/or how the on-going antitrust lawsuit filed against Google by the U.S. Department of Justice may impact your terms and conditions of employment,” according to last week’s notice.
The policy change was first reported by The New York Times.
The reversal comes as Google and the DOJ prepare to return to the courtroom for their scheduled remedies trial on April 21. The DOJ has said it is considering structural remedies, including breaking up Google’s Chrome web browser, which it argues gives Google an unfair advantage in the search market.
A U.S. District Court judge ruled in August that Google illegally held a monopoly in the search market. Google said it would appeal the decision. The DOJ doubled down on its calls for a breakup in a March filing.
Following the August ruling, Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, sent a companywide email directing employees to “refrain from commenting on this case, both internally and externally.”
Shortly after, the Alphabet Workers Union filed an unfair labor practice charge against Google with the NLRB. The union alleged that Walker’s message was an “overly broad directive” and said that a breakup could impact workers’ roles. The NLRB in March ruled that Google must allow workers to speak on such topics.
Google’s settlement states that the National Labor Relations Act gives employees the right to form, join or assist a union. It notes that Google is not rescinding its prior clarification that states employees may not speak on behalf of Google on this matter without approval from the company. The settlement also adds that Google will not interfere with, restrain or coerce workers in the exercise of their rights.
Despite the settlement, spokesperson Courtenay Mencini said Google did not agree with the NLRB’s ruling.
“To avoid lengthy litigation, we agreed to remind employees that they have the right to talk about their employment, as they’ve always been free to and regularly do,” Mencini said in a statement to CNBC.
The settlement by Google comes at a “crucial moment” ahead of the remedies trial, the Alphabet Worker’s Union said Monday.
“We think the potential remedies from this trial could have impact on our wages, working conditions and terms of employment,” said Stephen McMurtry, communications chair of the Alphabet Workers Union-CWA, told CNBC.
Apple CEO Tim Cook inspects the new iPhone 16 during an Apple special event at Apple headquarters on September 09, 2024 in Cupertino, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
Apple shares skyrocketed 15% on Wednesday after President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on his administration’s “reciprocal tariffs,” which would have affected the company’s production locations in Vietnam, India, and Thailand.
The rally added over $400 billion to Apple’s market cap, which now stands just under $3 trillion. It was Apple’s best day since January 1998, when late founder Steve Jobs was the interim CEO and three years before the company unveiled the first iPod. At the time, Apple’s market cap was close to $3 billion.
Apple has been the most prominent name to get whacked by Trump’s tariffs. Before Wednesday, it was on its worst four-day trading stretch since 2000. Investors worried about Apple’s outlook because the company still makes the majority of its revenue from selling physical devices, which need to be imported into the U.S.
Most of Apple’s iPhones and other hardware products are still made in China, which was not exempted from tariffs on Wednesday. In fact, Trump increased tariffs on China to 125% on Wednesday, up from 54%.
China issued an 84% tariff on U.S. goods this week, raising the possibility that Apple could get caught up in a trade war and lose ground in China, its third-largest market by sales.
Apple has worked to diversify its supply chain to lessen reliance on China in recent years.
On Wednesday, tariffs on Vietnam were reduced from 46% to 10%, and tariffs on India were cut 26% to 10%, which raises the possibility that Apple will be able to serve a large percentage of its U.S. customers from factories outside of China with lower tariffs.
Stocks skyrocketed across the board on Wednesday after Trump announced the tariff pause. The Nasdaq Composite climbed over 12%, its second-best day ever.
Apple hasn’t commented publicly on Trump’s tariffs, but CEO Tim Cook will likely address the topic on an earnings call on May 1.
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