The fallout from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank is beginning to spread around the world.
Startup founders in California’s Bay Area are panicking about access to money and paying employees. Fears of contagion have reached Canada, where the bank’s loan book has doubled in the past year. SVB’s unit in the U.K. is set to be declared insolvent, has already ceased trading and is no longer taking new customers. On Saturday, the leaders of roughly 180 tech companies sent a letter calling on U.K. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to intervene.
“The loss of deposits has the potential to cripple the sector and set the ecosystem back 20 years,” they said in the letter seen by Bloomberg. “Many businesses will be sent into involuntary liquidation overnight.”
