- The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank will spark a wave of tech mergers, according to Wedbush.
- SVB played an integral role in providing startup funds to companies that would be denied by typical banks.
- Tech M&A will be up 20% in 2023 from a year ago, and some startups could hasten IPOs, Wedbush said.
One ramification of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse is more technology mergers, according to a Tuesday note from Wedbush analyst Dan Ives.
Silicon Valley Bank played a crucial role in providing funding to risky technology startup companies that would be denied from typical commercial banks. With the bank now fully collapsed and given the likelihood that lending standards across all banks will get tighter, it means a key source of funding has dried up for tech startups.
"SVB is the hearts and lungs of the tech startup world and had its tentacles in one way or another across the early and late stage tech landscape especially since the dot.com burst," Ives explained. "When others left the Valley in 2001/2002, SVB was the bedrock and played an instrumental role in the thousands of successful tech startups seen over the years."
The bank made it very easy for profitless and speculative tech companies to receive lines of credit and venture debt terms. But that's over after SVB was taken over by the FDIC last week as a big mismatch between its duration of assets and liabilities helped spark a bank run.
"Now startups face the arduous task of getting loans and banking relationships with large money center banks or other regionals that will greatly scrutinize funding with a lab microscope," Ives said.
But startups have another funding option that will likely return in a big way this year, especially as tech valuations for small companies slide: getting bought out by bigger peers or moving ahead with an IPO.
According to the note, Ives expects a 20% surge in tech buyouts this year.
"This could accelerate M&A within the startup ecosystem and also ultimately drive more late stage startups to seek alternative financing and in some cases could speed up the IPO path with a much tighter financing environment post SVB," Ives said.
In the meantime, there are some big losers in the tech ecosystem that will face crunch time due to the downfall of Silicon Valley Bank, and that's the software and tech vendors that have exposure to the small and medium-sized businesses, according to Ives.
Companies like Atlassian, Gitlab, New Relic, and Twilio "could see headwinds as tech companies pull back on spending and adjust their headcount," he said.
After tech companies went on a hiring spree over the past two years, that's reversing, and any slowdown in user growth or reduction in headcount would hit vendors.