Silicon Valley Bank: The Story of the Colombian Businessman Who Saved Over $11 Million

He Silicon Valley Bank he went to bankruptcy after reporting a loss of $1.8 billion and an fall of more than 60% in the action of this banking company, which caused panic among the people who had products thereforcing them to withdraw their money and causing insolvency in this financial institution UNITED STATES.

will find is a company dedicated to digital signature and identity for banks, and its CEO –Daniel Bilbao–He was one of those who managed to save the funds he had in the Silicon Valley Bank before going bankrupt.

In an interview with Radio BlueBilbao recounted the series of events that helped them realize that the silicon valley bank went bankrupt.

Bilbao pointed out that they had managed to obtain funding from $15 million invest and develop the company, They had 12 million in the Silicon Valley bank.

He CEO of Troura indicated that he received a message from the company’s co-founder on Thursday March 9 indicating that in the secondary market the gestures of Silicon Valley Bank they had fallen by 30%. Bilbao felt nervous about the behavior of the financial company on the stock market so he decided to go out $500,000 of one of the products he had in the bank and put them in JP Morgan.

At 9 o’clock in the morning, Bilbao sees that in a whatsapp group of Troura Investors they were nervous and asked what we were going to do with the money that was in the Silicon Valley and they made an investigation by this means where it was decided to withdraw the funds from the financial entity in UNITED STATES.

“We work very hard, we suffer a lot and around 6 o’clock in the afternoon, 12 millions what we had, we took 11 million”, he pointed Bilbao In Radio Blue.

business man Alexander Torrenegracredited for being one of the show’s sharks shark tankbut through Twitter He said he lost a lot of his savings in Silicon Valley Bank, What it was the primary bank for two of his businesses, Personal Savings and Mortgage. According to, between 2013 and 2023 everything was fineuntil what happened on March 9, 2023.

Then, he recounted the raw details of his despair as follows:

– Thursday, March 9 (09:00): When talking to over 200 tech founders (mostly in the Bay Area), questions about SVB start to pop up.

10:00 a.m.: Some suggest withdrawing money from SVB for security reasons. Only the other way around. No downside.

10:50 a.m.: I read the messages during a toilet break. I immediately cancel the meeting I had. I ask my wife, Tania, to transfer all our personal money to other banks. I call my teams. I ask you to do the same. One of them, at the dentist, has to stop the procedure and run home.

11:15 a.m.: We cannot withdraw money from either account. For our personal savings, we have no other bank accounts available. For one of the companies, the authorizations are not in place to allow such a large outflow of money. We can only get half the money. We transfer it to Ameritrade, since we don’t have another bank account set up. For the second company, the bank identifiers have been modified. I can’t log in.

11:15 a.m.: Tania contacts another bank with whom we were already talking, UBS. We ask you to quickly open a bank account.

11:20 a.m.: I change the permissions for the first company. We request another transfer to Ameritrade for the remaining money of this company. You have to wait for the cables to come out.

11:25 a.m.: After a long wait, I contact an SVB agent. They reset my credentials for the second company.

12:00 p.m.: All of my conversations with tech founders in the United States know what’s going on. Obviously, we have a second round. Surrealist.

12:30 p.m.: We are asking for two transfers for all the money from the second company to Mercury.

12:38 p.m.: Electronic transfers to Ameritrade erased. The first company is safe.

12:45 p.m.: We signed dozens of documents – without reading them – and completed the opening of a personal bank account with UBS.

12:50 p.m.: Tanya’s Requests SVBthrough their website, to transfer all of our personal savings to UBS. Given the permission settings set, they tell us that they have to call us.

1:30 p.m.: SVB it is a solid bench. I know your CEO, Greg Becker. Good boy. I imagine this is a temporary issue caused mostly by people panicking. They will recover. I buy SVB shares at what I consider to be very low prices.

2:09 p.m.: One of the cables from the other company is erased.

15:00: My conversations with Latin American tech founders are starting to catch up.

4:05 p.m.: SVB calls us. It tells us that our savings will be withdrawn the same day, as requested.

4:10 p.m. m: We took a plane back to San Francisco.

11:50 p.m.: we have landed We learn that the second cable for the second company has not yet been cleared. Worse, the transfer to draw our personal savings from SVB is still in the queue.

02:00: We go to bed.