Mar. 25—THE FAILURE of Silicon Valley Bank has been billed as a West Coast story, but some technology companies in New Hampshire were just as nervous as their California counterparts.

"It was obviously a very scary few days (last) weekend until the FDIC stepped in to secure the depositors," said Kyle York, CEO of York IE, a Manchester company that invests in early-stage software companies.

About a third of the startups in the company's portfolio did business with Silicon Valley Bank, York said Wednesday.

"Many left it sitting right there. Some did decide to diversify and move it around," he said. "In the end depositors are all set because of the FDIC upping those limits and securing the deposits, which is a great thing for the industry."

On Monday, York was invited by Bloomberg TV to talk about the banking crisis, which also includes First Republic Bank and Signature Bank — regional banks that have large amounts of uninsured deposits above the $250,000 FDIC limit. Credit Suisse, which is being acquired by rival Swiss investment bank, UBS, also got caught up in the turmoil.

"Fundamentally the venture capital industry that's been around for 40 years has gotten almost too big to fail," York said from his company's offices in the Cigar Building on Canal Street.

With the expectation that nine out of 10 startups will fail, how can that be good for entrepreneurs and the economy? York told Bloomberg.

"This is war time for startups. They need to know that they have investors and that they have advisers, and they have people around them that can help them to figure out what to do during these times," he said during the segment.

The crisis is a good reminder for companies to maintain several banking relationships, said York, whose company does business locally with Bedford-based Primary Bank and also works with several other banks including Capitol One and First Republic.

"Just like anything else, have redundancy in the system and always be mindful and thoughtful about how to move money around and create contingency plans," York said Wednesday.

York previously was chief revenue officer of Dyn, a Manchester tech company that was acquired by Oracle in 2016 for reportedly more than $600 million.

"Dyn was a very happy Silicon Valley Bank customer," York said. "A lot of our deposits and venture capital we had raised lived with Silicon Valley Bank. They have been a great steward of the industry in that they provide a lot of lines of credit and debt vehicles for private companies."

For young startups, not just deposits have been at risk but the ability to borrow money, York said.

"In growth companies and startups, capital is used to fuel growth, future hiring and scaling tech platforms, supporting customers. And if that goes away or gets stalled or disappears, there's going to be huge impacts on companies."

York IE invests in 15 to 20 early-stage companies a year, focusing on the business-to-business software sector.

"The idea of our model is to put more wins in the win column and help each entrepreneur be successful relatively," he said. "A million-dollar check is our average check size. We're not putting $15 million in one and $10K in 15 more."

Mike Cote is senior editor for news and business. Contact him at mcote@unionleader.com or (603) 206-7724.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author. They do not represent the views and opinions of the sponsor, its members and affiliates.