Silicon Valley Bank opened its Canadian headquarters in Toronto, where it will provide in-market commercial financing solutions to private and public technology and life science companies and their investors across Canada.
“SVB’s official entrance into Canada is another sign that our technology ecosystem is growing quickly,” said Andrew Graham, co-founder and CEO of Borrowell, a fintech company and SVB client based in Toronto. “They have worked with many of the world’s most successful technology companies and have a deep understanding of high-growth innovation companies across life-stages. SVB’s support has been extremely helpful to us as we’ve scaled our business.”
SVB has served the Canadian market on a cross-border basis since 2000 via its U.S. operations, supporting clients such as Drop, HLS Therapeutics, Shopify, SnapTravel and Vanedge Capital with a range of specialized financial services.
“Canada has a thriving innovation sector and we’re excited to be a catalyst for its continued growth,” said Greg Becker, CEO of Silicon Valley Bank. “The Canadian banking licence is a significant milestone in our global expansion. The growing team there is well-positioned to execute on SVB’s mission to help innovative companies and their investors be even more successful.”
Venture capital funding in Canada hit a record high in 2018, with $3.5 billion USD invested through more than 471 deals, according to the MoneyTree Canada report by PwC Canada and CB Insights. Toronto was named North America’s fastest growing tech market by CBRE for the second year in a row in 2018, mainly due to the city’s tech talent employment base growing by the largest number of workers in 2017 with 28,900 tech jobs added.
With approval from the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, Silicon Valley Bank may immediately commence lending to technology, life science, private equity and venture capital companies across Canada from its new base in Toronto.
