Stefan Kalb was in the middle of a meeting around 1 p.m. on Thursday when a fellow company executive sent him a panicked Slack message: “Do you know what’s happening at SVB?”
Kalb, the CEO and co-founder of Seattle-based food management startup Shelf Engine, had been following news of a bank run at Silicon Valley Bank, with droves attempting to pull out $42 billion from the bank on Thursday alone on fears that it was teetering on the brink.
The bank was on firm financial footing on Wednesday. The following day, it was under water.
For Shelf Engine, a 40-person startup founded in 2015 that uses artificial intelligence to help grocery stores reduce food waste, this was a major problem.
Not only did Silicon Valley Bank help the company process checks and payments, but all of the startup’s cash was locked up in the bank.
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