But some early-stage founders told Insider they had trouble getting access to SVB's services.When Yelitsa Jean-Charles sought working capital for her company, Healthy Roots Dolls, in 2021, she turned toLater, several of her investors connected her with officials at the bank, in the hopes that a warm introduction would smooth the process. By then, Healthy Roots had raised $1.
Though SVB was generally much more accessible to early-stage founders than larger banks, founders and investors said, it relied on close relationships with VC firms in order to vet the loan worthiness of founders. As a result, some, who approached the bank ended up encountering similar barriers as they did when seeking equity funding from investors.
Like Jean-Charles, Brian Alvarez-Bailey, the founder of Allison, which makes tools to connect fintech startups with community banks and credit unions, received a similar response from SVB when he applied for a line of credit in 2021. At the time, his company wasn't venture-backed. Jean-Charles and Alvarez-Bailey said they didn't believe bias or discrimination was at play in SVB's decisions — they simply didn't meet the bank's VC funding threshold.
"Their internal workforce was very diverse compared to other banks, so they could really connect with the community in that way," said Kange Kaneene, who heads SAP's accelerator program, SAP.iO Foundries, in North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean. SVB often worked with pre-seed and seed-stage founders when other banks wouldn't, she said.
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