Source: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-si...

Part lender, part consultant, part cheerleader and part investor, Silicon Valley Bank has been a nursemaid to countless start-ups — Airbnb, Fitbit, Pinterest and TrueCar, to name some recent ones — as well as banking the venture capitalists who fund them.

By many measures, the bank has outperformed bigger rivals, not just by lending to fledgling firms but by taking small ownership stakes in them to help offset their higher risks.