Khosla’s challenger bank OakNorth concentrates on the “missing middle”, businesses with a turnover of between £1m and £100m. He says that mainstream banks too often focus on companies at opposing ends of the scale: micro-businesses or large corporates. Launched in 2015, OakNorth has more than 200,000 customers and has so far lent £10.2bn. Annual earnings climbed by 23 per cent to £187.3m in 2023. Now Khosla is looking to provide services to tech firms once served by Silicon Valley Bank, which collapsed in 2023. A fundraising led by Japanese investor SoftBank has valued OakNorth at £2.2bn.