Four days. Thirteen founders. One city that doesn't slow down.
Thirteen scale-up CEOs inside the rooms you can't book yourself into — Adyen, Wilson Sonsini, Insight, Radian, RTP, Datasnipper, Yext, Bilt. NASDAQ to close.
By the numbers
In pictures
A walk through the week — NASDAQ, Adyen, the Founders Table, Datasnipper, Ludlow House, Times Square.
The week, session by session
Every hour earned. Times approximate, the rooms exact.
Putting the real challenges on the table
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Arrivals
CitizenM BoweryCohort lands. No opening panel — the question on the plane was the agenda.
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Opening deep dive — your US plan, blocked
Xposed Gallery · Joe Wilson · ex-COO bunq · founder, RisenuFive startups, a decade running billion-dollar businesses globally. Each founder put the real blocker on the table. Ran straight into dinner.
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Welcome dinner
Hosted by Adriaan Kolff · Co-founder & CEO, MatchrThe guest list started becoming a cohort.
Scaling and fundraising, by the people doing it
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Adyen's US expansion playbook
Adyen NYC · Eric Mahecha · VP Account Management, Adyen25 years of payments distilled into a 30-minute deep dive.
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US expansion & VC fundraising
Adyen NYC · Daniel Glazer & Timothy Broas · Wilson SonsiniThe firm in the room for more tech IPOs than you can count.
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Equity & dilutive financing — the real options
Adyen NYC · Jos van Zante & Juliette Hensgens · RabobankHalf-understood until you need them. Broken down properly.
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Unicorn founder AMA · lunch
Radian Capital · Hosted by Jamie Glavin · VP, Radian CapitalUnfiltered.
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Unicorn founder AMA
RTP Global · Hosted by Thomas Cuvelier · Partner, RTP GlobalRound two. Different operator, same format.
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The Founders Table — NYC × NL
Beauty & Essex · Constantijn van Oranje × Consulate General of the Netherlands40 founders. Colin Kahl — former US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Senior Advisor at Macro Advisory Partners, Senior Fellow at Stanford — on the US macro & geopolitical climate. The read you don't get from a newsletter.
Selling, scaling, and the room you can't book
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Consumer fintech at speed — AMA
Datamaran office · David Wyler · CBO, Bilt RewardsOne of the fastest-growing consumer fintechs in the US. No script.
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VC lunch
Datasnipper office · Insight PartnersWorking session, not pitch meeting.
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Building a US sales machine
Datasnipper office · Carrie Bosworth · CRO, DatasnipperThe kind of operational session founders pay consultants thousands for.
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Building, scaling, IPO'ing — and doing it again
Datasnipper office · Brian Distelburger · Founder, Yext & WindmillA second-time founder who already took one company public.
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Tech Connect — NYC × NL
Ludlow House · Constantijn van Oranje × Tech:NYC80 founders, investors and operators from both sides of the Atlantic. The room you can't walk into on your own. That's the point.
NASDAQ. Times Square. Done.
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Opening bell visit
NASDAQ MarketSite7:50 AM. The cohort walks in.
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Tower photo
Times SquareThe shot you don't get on a layover.
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Closing debrief & departure
A short debrief. By 9:15 it was over. You leave New York different than you arrived.
Who was in the room
Thirteen companies. One shared question: what does it actually take to win in the US?
What founders walked away with
- A direct line to the operators running US expansion at Adyen, Bilt, Datasnipper, Yext.
- Working sessions — not pitch meetings — with Wilson Sonsini, Rabobank, Insight, Radian, RTP Global.
- A macro read on the US from Colin Kahl that you can't Google.
- A peer group of twelve other scale-up CEOs on the same scaling questions, now on a first-name basis.
- Room access — Beauty & Essex, Ludlow House, NASDAQ — that opens doors long after the flight home.
Who we sat down with
Want a seat on the next one?
The next Cities trip is already being shaped. Spots are limited and the bar is high, and we bring founders of scaling businesses ready to take the market seriously. Every trip ends with a private recap like this one.