[caseyf7]

This really comes across in the choice of Brex for storing cash. I don't think most VCs would be comfortable with portfolio companies storing their millions with Brex (unless they are investors in Brex). Startup CFOs are not chasing yield with investor's money and really want the safest, most convenient option, that builds a relationship for the future if the company is successful.

[DjMojoRisin]

Money Market funds are a good option to store cash that one needs for the immediate term, and there is a wide variety of them. However, one should evaluate each fund and their holdings to understand the risk & liquidity profiles.

My colleague just wrote this explainer detailing how money market funds work and how one should go about selecting one, in case it's helpful - https://medium.com/@mikedombrowski/are-money-market-funds-th...

Full Disclosure: I'm the founder of InterPrime (yc w19). We provide treasury management services and bring the treasury tools that big companies have been using for decades to Startups, SMBs, Non-profits & Investment Funds. Happy to chat and help anyone with questions on these topics.

[Fission]

This is actually a really interesting comment, because it reminds me of a meta-observation that I've made over the past few weeks.

First off though, I want to clarify that the money market fund is typically not operated by the org. The GMMF choices for SVB are managed by BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, etc., for Brex it is BNY Mellon, etc. You really only get self-operated funds for larger financial institutions, e.g. Wells Fargo or Fidelity. Therefore, many of these products act as a software layer over some existing bank/fund/etc. I believe we explain this distinction in the article. There are some caveats, but this is the general gist.

But onto the meta-observation: given the current economic climate w/ depressed treasury rates, we've recently received a lot of questions about higher-yield options, specifically re: CDs which are currently hovering around 1.5%. These are from well-known, well-respected startups who presumably don't need the cash and don't need to deal with the high overhead and illiquidity of CDs. I think that this really demonstrates the survival instincts of later-stage founders being carried forward from their early days, and the fact that startups are functionally live optimization machines, not just at a product-level, but as an entire organization. It seems to us that the best startups eke out every advantage they can — with all respect to the nature of the power law, these small differences, in aggregate, might make or break the entire company.