'Mistakenly Released' FDIC Document Shows Big Venture Capital Firm Got Backstopped A Hefty Amount In SVB Collapse

The aftermath of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapse has been anything but peaceful for startups, tech companies and regulatory bodies alike.

The swift downfall of SVB, which went from solvent to insolvent within a span of two days in March, sent ripples across the banking and tech sectors. Tasked with mitigating the fallout, the FDIC inadvertently released an unredacted document that showed an in-depth look into the bank’s biggest customers, Bloomberg reported.

When SVB fell, it marked the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history, following Washington Mutual’s 2008 collapse. The Federal government stepped in to salvage thousands of tech startups that relied heavily on SVB and prevent a potential domino effect leading to the failure of other banks.

Amid the chaos, the FDIC guaranteed all accounts above the standard $250,000 insurance limit, including larger companies with hefty deposits.

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The mistakenly released FDIC document showed an unexpected insight: Sequoia Capital, which Bloomberg called the world’s "most prominent" venture capital (VC) fund, had a staggering $1 billion deposited with SVB at the time of the bank’s failure. Sequoia is known for making significant investments in tech, including FTX, Reddit, Apple Inc AAPL and Twitter.

Other big names on the list included Kanzhun Ltd BZ, a Beijing-based tech company with more than $900 million in deposits, and crypto stablecoin company Circle Internet Financial Ltd, with a balance of $3.3 billion.

BILL Holdings Inc BILL had more than $761 million in deposits, while ROKU ROKU had just over $420 million in deposits. Altos Labs, a life sciences startup, had $680.3 million in deposits with the bank.

Despite the FDIC’s efforts to sell off sections of the failed bank, the overall cost to the deposit insurance fund was substantial. The agency estimated that the decision to cover all depositors at SVB and Signature Bank, which also failed in March, cost the fund about $15.8 billion.

In its heyday, SVB was the go-to for numerous tech startups and became a financial mainstay for industry giants, many of whom kept their relationships with the bank confidential.

Sequoia, for example, recommended that every startup it backed bank with SVB, according to Bloomberg, with its deposits amounting to a fraction of its $85 billion assets under management.

According to the FDIC document, the top 10 depositors at SVB lost and were backstopped a collective $12.77 billion, while the top 10 accounts — most of which were the top 10 depositors — had a collective $10.57 billion at the bank.

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