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The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank was an existential crisis for founders like me — one that came out of nowhere and had nothing to do with the strength of our businesses . Overnight, something as basic as access to our own capital was thrown into question.

It exposed a hard truth: much of the startup ecosystem was built on assumptions that had never been truly tested under pressure. Founders were suddenly forced to confront questions most had never seriously considered — how secure their banking relationships really were, how resilient their capital structure was and what would happen if critical institutions stopped behaving predictably.

For me, this wasn’t theoretical. It put a $100 million deal at risk and forced an immediate reset in how I think about fundraising, risk and control. Strategies that made perfect sense in stable markets unraveled quickly.…