Source: SVB Capital may be sold for $250 million to $500 million

Author: Tom Mitchelhill, Cointelegraph; Compiler: Songxue, Golden Finance

SVB Financial Group, the former parent of Silicon Valley Bank, is close to a deal that will see the institution sell its venture capital arm, SVB Capital.

Anthony Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital and Atlas Merchant Capital are competing with San Francisco firm Vector Capital in the final stages of the bidding process, the Wall Street Journal reported on September 15, citing people familiar with the matter.

Sources said SVB’s venture capital arm could be sold for $250 million to $500 million, but warned that a final sale was not guaranteed and would still require review by a committee of creditors.

A court decision on the sale is expected in the coming weeks.

Notably, SVB Capital was not included in SVB’s overall Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, and the bank reportedly said it would continue its “normal business operations” despite being put up for sale.

SVB Capital is an investment capital platform that makes a wide range of investments, including support from Sequoia Capital and other major Silicon Valley venture capital firms such as Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).

As of December 2022, SVB Capital held $9.5 billion in assets across 20 funds and 760 companies, including blockchain analytics service Chainalysis.

Overview of SVB Capital’s holdings as of December 2022. Source: SVB Capital

Scarammuci’s SkyBridge Capital, meanwhile, manages about $1.8 billion. Of this amount, approximately US$580 million was investments related to cryptocurrencies and other digital assets.

Earlier this year, Silicon Valley Bank was shut down by California financial regulators on March 10 and filed for bankruptcy on March 17. Before its collapse, Silicon Valley Bank was one of the few institutions in the United States that provided banking services to cryptocurrency companies.

SVB’s collapse, along with other crypto- and technology-friendly banks such as Signature Bank and Silvergate Bank, was later seen as the worst banking crisis since 2008.

Earlier this year, SVB Financial’s investment banking arm, known as SVB Securities, sold itself to founder Jeff Leerink and other senior executives for $100 million.