They understand the startup ecosystem in a way that big banks don't. Now there's some competition from startup-focused banks like Brex and Mercury, but a five years ago SVB was one of the only games in town.
P.S. which makes me wonder how much of SVB friendliness was just smart marketing. If you look up and down this thread, most of the SVB "explanations" here are strictly circular: "they are good for startups because they are good for startups", with little to none useful info.
Bragging about getting a car loan when (I assume) you have good history and credit? Unless it was a $1.5m Mclaren P1 supercar or something, that's not remotely in the same category.
If you want another anecdote - this one has millions in it - my last startup banked with Wells Fargo from pre-seed right up to series A with >10mil in three funding rounds and never had a single problem. Must be my crazy luck here as well!
At any rate, SVB is dead now, so it's pointless to argue whether they were really a startup's best friend or just hyped that up. They are not anyone's friend anymore, they are dead and the only real question here is how to get the damn money back from them.
Mercury provides services and a frontend, but their banking services are provided by Choice Financial and Evolve.
Brex is also not bank. The Brex business account is an FDIC Sweep account, which constantly moves your balances across multiple banks to keep you within the FDIC limits.
Consider that startups are most often sitting on mountains of cash.
Also, having founders personally guarantee a credit card by putting up a house as collateral is not ideal for anyone.