By: Nate Bek
Startup founders flush with fresh cash face a whirlwind of priorities — milestones to hit, engineers to hire, and a product to build and polish. But a practical, often overlooked question looms: where should that cash live, and who can be trusted to manage it?
To get answers, we spoke with Minh Le, Managing Director at Stifel Bank and a veteran startup banker in Seattle. With two decades of tech banking experience, he has guided startups from their earliest funding rounds to successful IPOs. Along the way, he’s been a trusted advisor, securing lines of credit to help companies navigate turbulent times.
(Ascend banks with Stifel, part of a longterm relationship and trust of Minh.)
We’ve put together a detailed FAQ for founders seeking guidance on banking best practices. This resource offers practical insights for founders making financial decisions or seeking a trusted banking advisor.
*We've edited this conversation for brevity. Enjoy! — Nate 👾
Nate: Thanks for chatting with us, Minh. If I am a founder, how many banks should I have?
*Rates are subject to change at any time
Minh: We recommend having two banks — one to serve as your primary bank and is a good strategic fit (has products and expertise that are tailored to your business), great service and can also go beyond banking to provide relevant business advice and connections to customers, talent, and investors; the other would service as a back-up that you have a couple of payrolls of cash at just in case your primary bank fails. A key component in this is making sure that your cash is also safe where you have it.
Cash is critical for any company, so founders should know where its deposits are held, how secure the funds are, how accessible the funds are, and what they’re earning on the funds.
At Stifel, our clients benefit from our Insured Cash Sweep product, which allows them to keep their cash completely liquid (they can access their cash same day) and FDIC insured up to $250 million. The rate we pay is also very competitive for fully safe and fully liquid.
As VCs, we are constantly pitching our platform services and value add to founders. Do startup bankers offer similar support for founders?
Different banks and bankers have different skill sets and approaches to working with their clients, some of which are mostly focused on their banking products and loans. At Stifel, we provide value to founders in two ways: focus and platform.
Focus: We largely work with founders and companies that are disruptive and often are venture backed (or are planning to raise venture capital), so our products and services are tailored to this profile. We have very experienced venture bankers that are focused on being great, strategic business partners for our clients. If a client needs banking services, we’re there to provide it, but often it’s other things like specific business advice or connections to investors, talent, customers, strategic partners, etc. that is a pressing need and that we can provide them. Also, the advice and the creative debt solutions are important as well. You can’t get those things from most banks.
Platform: We would argue we’re the best and provide the full platform, which includes all of those things mentioned above, but also extends to investment banking and wealth advisory (optimizing liquidity events for founders). Venture Bank + Investment Bank + Wealth Advisory can support a founder at all stages both personally and professionally, we believe that’s very compelling and unique to Stifel.
What are the most common banks startups are working with these days?
Stifel Bank, Mercury, Brex, JP Morgan, Silicon Valley Bank
What are the pros/cons across various banks (big strategically important vs. regional)?
You’ll get widely differing perspectives here depending on who you ask. I’ll try to be objective:
Stifel – I’ll start with my naturally biased beliefs on Stifel, which I honestly believe:
Pros:
Best Team - Our team has decades of experience supporting entrepreneurs. The person that ran the Tech practice nationally is with us as is the person that ran enterprise software nationally, the person that ran frontier tech national, the person that ran Corporate Banking nationally (the group that worked with late stage and public companies), I ran Washington and Western Canada, my counterpart that ran LA, etc.
Broad Platform – Having the robustness of the expertise of our wealth advisory business and investment bank to pair with what we do on in the commercial bank for companies is a big differentiator, and quite frankly a vision we were trying to realize at SVB the last 5yr+ before the bank collapsed (we were building an investment and bought Boston Private to build out our private banking capabilities). Stifel is the 7th largest wealth advisory business in the country with nearly half a trillion of assets under management and the leading middle market investment bank (we do the most transactions $100M-$1B; and we’ll do $1B+ transactions as well)
Focused on Early to Growth - Having an investment bank focused on growth and late stage companies is important as it allows us to have that expertise more applicable to a broader swath of our clients. The larger banks can have a hard time getting the attention of their investment bankers that are incentivized to only work with the multi-billion dollar transactions, of which most tech outcomes are not.
The Right Size – We’re a $30B+ bank, which makes us large enough to work with large growth stage companies, while being very nimble in how we operate. Larger banks (banks that are $200B+ like JPM, HSBC, and SVB) are considered LFIs (Large Financial Institutions) and have a substantially higher level of regulatory oversight that can limit what they can do and how they do things.
Cons:
Limited Brand Awareness – We’ve come a long way since our west coast team was formed nearly 2 years ago (21 months to be exact). When we lose to banks like JPM, it’s largely due to their brand and the feeling that they’re too big to fail.
UI/UX – We’re making huge strides here as well and are actually launching a new banking system first part 2025, but our UI/UX (nor will any other banks be) what folks experience with fintech players like Mercury.
Other Pros and Cons:
Pros:
Of the really big banks, HSBC, MUFG, and JPM have hired a lot of tech-focused bankers to try and capture the opportunity in tech.
HSBC, MUFG, and JPM are also viewed as too big to fail.
Mercury and Brex are software companies. They tend to have the best UI and have digital account opening that tends to be the quickest. They offer a good self-service offering.
Cons:
Big banks tend to be more rigid and less nimble given their size and regulatory burden.
Mercury and Brex aren’t banks and can often mask the bank companies are actually working with. Underlying banks and their respective safety profile often aren’t evaluated, when they should be. As an example, one of the leading banking as a service providers and has recently been in the news with meaningful regulatory issues that have emerged. Mercury and Brex are also both private, venture backed companies, so if you’re looking for transparent stability as a key factor in your bank, working directly with a regulated bank that’s public would be better at achieving that.
Fintechs are focused on UI and self-service. Those tend to be low value needs they can make good. They don’t have the relationship aspect of banking that drives real strategic value.
What about the newer entrants like Brex and Ramp if founders use them for other things?
We actually partner with Ramp. They have a great credit card and expense management platform and provide our clients a $1,000 credit. Ramp and Brex are both really good at the credit card/expense management side of things. I think they should be leveraged for that. For banking, for reasons outlined above, I think choosing a stable bank to directly work with makes more sense, in particular one that understands your space and needs and can deliver value in those areas.
Addressing the elephant in the room, how can founders make sure they are FDIC-insured on all their cash? Or should they not worry about that?
Founders should absolutely understand where their cash is and whether it’s liquid and safe. FDIC insurance is one way to achieve safety of your cash. Insured Cash Sweep is a way to allow you to get FDIC insurance on potentially all of your cash. You can also have cash invested in treasuries as another option for safety.
How can founders make sure they are getting decent interest on their cash?
Taking a look at a few different options to compare is the way to ensure you’re getting a market rate. Also, look at what government treasuries are offering both short and near term as a good proxy. It’s worth nothing that Bank interest rates tend to move in line with interest rate changes made by the Federal Reserve. If the Federal Reserve decreases rates, you should expect the return on your cash to decrease as well.
Should founders have business checking, savings, a sweep account, etc.?
The most common way to do this is to have a checking account and sweep account. The sweep account will have some minimum peg balance and will sweep everything above that level. Just remember that what’s not swept is then typically subject to the $250,000 FDIC limit, so if the peg balance is $500,000, then $250,000 of that cash in there will not be FDIC insured. That's a small exposure, so maybe it’s okay. For instance, our peg balance is set at $250,000 and then the rest is swept into ICS and fully FDIC insured.
Should founders buy treasuries/bonds/CDs with any of their cash?
I’d generally say no for cash-burning tech companies. Keeping cash liquid tends to be important and there’s not a lot of incremental value for locking up cash and having to manage it vs. having an automated solution like insured cash sweep. That recommendation might change if you have multiple years of runway and meaningful cash ($100M+) and if the yield curve shifts and there’s a more meaningful return for locking up some portion of cash.
How much debt should I take on and when?
This varies on the business type and stage. For early and early growth companies, you typically are doing a third of the last equity round and you’re doing it within six months of raising the round.
What are good standard terms?
This varies on the type of facility you are getting. For venture debt, good standard terms tend to be a third of the last round in size, four years overall term, no financial covenants or maybe a topline covenant, rate of Prime +0.50%; warrants in the 20bps fully diluted ownership range.
What are the gotchas?
Know your lender and what kind of partner they are. If they don’t have a ton of experience, it might be risky to work with them as you don’t know how they will behave when it matters most. Otherwise, I don’t think about it as gotchas. I think you just need to make sure the structure works well for the business.
If there are covenants, do they provide founders sufficient flexibility and are they the right ones to manage the business with. How should founders pay it down?
Use it when you need it. Pay it down per the terms of the debt deal unless you’ve raised a new round, in which case you should consider refinancing what you had with your lender.
When should founders consider working capital facilities vs. standard venture debt?
This varies depending on the type of business and business model. Generally speaking, when revenues start getting to the $10 million range, you have enough working capital that can support working capital debt. Before then, you typically will have more availability through venture debt. Venture debt doesn’t scale well like working capital debt.
What about equipment financing/leasing? When should founders consider this?
Typically when you have hard assets to finance AND it’s in excess of what a venture bank might be able to provide. Bank loans tend to be more attractive in how they are structured (cost and repayment).
I’m glad to connect with folks directly if they have questions or are looking for a better banking partner. You can reach me through email: mle@stifelbank.com.
Nate Bek is an associate at Ascend, where he screens new deal opportunities, conducts due diligence, and publishes research. Prior to that he was a startups and venture capital reporter at GeekWire.
Disclaimer: The information provided here is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice, and you should always consult with a qualified financial professional before making any investment decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.