Toy Store Camp Begs Customers for Cash After Money Tied up in SVB
- Experiential toy store Camp is caught up in the ripple effects of Silicon Valley Bank's collapse.
- CEO Ben Kaufman said all of the company's cash was in the bank, so it's having a 40% off sale with the promo code "BANKRUN."
- Regulators officially shut down Silicon Valley Bank on Friday. It's the largest bank collapse since the 2008 crisis.
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Companies tied up in Silicon Valley Bank's orbit are feeling the sting of the bank's collapse.
Camp, a venture-backed, interactive toy store with locations in New York, New Jersey, and California, is one such example.
Camp, which opened its first store in 2018, announced a 40% off sale on all of its merchandise on Friday, using a tongue-in-cheek promo code, 'BANKRUN.'
"All of our cash was at SVB and we are trying to build up our balance at Chase," Camp CEO and co-founder Ben Kaufman told Insider via Twitter direct message.
Kaufman also said the company has not yet heard from the shuttered bank.
In an email to customers, CEO Ben Kaufman wrote they are "hopeful this will be resolved soon."
"In the meantime we are turning to you, our most valuable customers, to help us," the email reads.
Silicon Valley Bank officially shut down on Friday, with financial regulators taking control of its deposits. The bank's implosion happened over just 48 hours after the bank made a surprise announcement on Wednesday that it needed to raise $2.25 billion, resulting in a rush of clients pulling out funds.
SVB's failure on Friday marked the second-largest bank collapse in U.S. history and the largest since the 2008 financial crisis.
The bank had deep ties in the venture capital and tech world, and its failure has raised fears about the fate of thousands of startups.
"The real victims of the SVB fallout are the depositors: startups (10 to 100 employees) who cannot make payroll, and will have to shut down or furlough *next week*," Y Combinator CEO Gary Tan wrote on Twitter.
"If these startups wait weeks/months for their deposits, we have destroyed a generation of US startups, *at random.*"
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