The UK chancellor is preparing a dramatic intervention to provide a lifeline to scores of tech businesses as he seeks to contain the damage caused by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

Jeremy Hunt said on Sunday there was “a serious risk” to tech and life sciences companies that used SVB’s UK bank, with senior founders warning of “carnage” if they are unable to pay wages and bills in the coming week.

The government spent the weekend racing to try to sell SVB UK and put together a backup plan to support the companies who have had deposits trapped in the ailing lender. Hours after US regulators shuttered California-based SVB on Friday, in the country’s biggest bank failure since 2008, the Bank of England announced it would have to put the group’s separate UK banking unit into insolvency, sparking the weekend sales process.