The collapse of the US regional bank Silicon Valley Bank has had its impact on the Argentine business ecosystem and at least a dozen local startups access to their funds was compromised during the last few days of last week. The figure was confirmed by Giulia Bearzi, executive director of Argentinawhich clarified that the majority (did not reveal identities) were already able to solve their problem and guaranteed that these inconveniences they did not affect users’ funds.
In a briefing for the press, Bearzi, where the foundation’s plans for this year were teased, commented that for the past few days Endeavor had been working with entrepreneurs who had deposited funds in the failed regional bank last Friday to help them with withdrawals and migrate their accounts to other entities.
“Fortunately, many of them have already managed to get hold of these funds. We have been actively helping them to do this these last couple of days 10 and 12, entrepreneurs of the Endeavo networkr with fast growing companies, which had funds there. Some were able to make withdrawals on Thursday, before the crisis, and others, who had less than $250,000, found themselves covered,” explained the chief executive officer of the country’s business community.
Bearzi assured that these “trapped funds” due to the bankruptcy of the Californian bank, after its customers withdrew $48,000 million in less than 48 hours, would be allocated by Argentine startups to the payment of salaries and fulfillment of commitments with suppliers. In doing so, he denied that end-customer balances were in any way affected.
“From Endeavor we contact them with banks with which we have relationships: JP Morgan, Citibank, among others, but with these entities entrepreneurs have to meet many requirements, so we estimate that these days they will work hard to resolve their situation.” detailed the contact person of the community of local entrepreneurs who will celebrate 25 years in the country.
The co-founder of Globant and president of Endeavor Argentina, Guibert Englebiennealso present at the meeting, he said, with the experience gained from having gone through the global financial crisis of 2008 and from being the head of one of the most important technological unicorns in the country: “Entrepreneurs in every crisis try to find an opportunity”.
“Personally, when we saw that in Argentina in 2002 everything was falling apart and people were leaving, we said ‘we have the opportunity to be a company that can exploit talent.’ There we learned what this was like. market and then we became a global company. I think entrepreneurs know how to take advantage of these windows of opportunity and overcome crises,” said Englebienne.
While not part of the Endeavor network, Rodrigo Irarrazavalthe Argentine founder of illowa platform that helps startups comply with privacy regulations with a line of code, has experienced a similar situation: less than $ 250,000 deposited in the Californian bank.
in dialogue with clarion, From Miami, where he lives, he recounted the adventures he had last weekend between the first report that came as advice from his lawyer and the Monday in which he was able to recover his money.
“Because the amount didn’t reach the US$250,000 that US bank insurance protects, the first thing we tried was to withdraw the money in several operations. But several things failed and the SVB platform ended up blocking my account“he commented. “I spent a very nervous weekend trying to figure out how to continue and on Monday I was able to transfer the funds,” he said and clarified that 90% of those deposits would be used to pay wages for his company employees.
Irarrazaval stressed that in the midst of the confusion he received help from “partners, investors who approached us and offered to advance us the money”. He also noted that he is in contact with at least twenty entrepreneurs in the country who, in one way or another, have also been affected by the failure of this bank.
For Bianca Sasson, managing partner of the fund Venture capital 17Sigma, which invests in 17 early-stage companies in the region, is “a breaking point for the entrepreneurial ecosystem.” However, the executive stressed that, despite initial fears, the crisis was quickly controlled. “None of the companies in our fund’s portfolio have been affected, but we’ve been working all weekend with entrepreneurs to help them sort out their situation,” he said.
Source: Clarin
