General Catalyst, Khosla Ventrues, Kleiner Perkins among firms looking to offer loans to portfolio companies
Natasha Mascarenhas
@nmasc_
/
13 hours
Two of tech’s biggest entrepreneurs, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and storied venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, are offering personal capital to startups on the brink of SVB collapse as their money remains locked up at Silicon Valley Bank. The bank, which was shut down and taken over by regulators on Friday, is involved with nearly half of all US venture capital-backed startups.
Beyond the fact that it is an investor’s job to invest, there’s something to be said about using personal capital to help businesses. The situation, rapidly unfolding, is also complicated by the fact that it’s the weekend so people can’t easily move money or they don’t have liquid cash.
Altman, the former CEO of Y Combinator, confirmed to TechCrunch that he’s using a “decent amount” of personal capital. He believes money will be freed up by next week and the loans are more to help startups which “need to make payroll now.”
Khosla said on Twitter that he is offering personal loans at borrowing cost to companies in the Khosla Ventures portfolio. Altman and Khosla both took to Twitter to urge other venture capitalists to offer emergency cash to employees. “Today is a good day to off …
