← Cities · All recaps
Mar 24–29, 2024 · Salt Lake City × San Francisco

Six days. Two coasts. The US, on the inside.

Dutch scale-up founders inside Utah's quiet powerhouse and the Bay Area's loudest one. Podium, Cotopaxi, Pattern, Pelion, Adyen-of-the-Rockies-style operators in SLC; SVB Sand Hill, GitLab's Sid Sijbrandij, Contextual AI, and the Consulate to close. Operated with ScaleNL.

No 01 · Recap

By the numbers

6
Days
2
Cities
15+
Closed-door sessions
3
Private dinners
No 02 · Recap

In pictures

A walk through the week — Delta Center, Build Utah, Edison House, the University Club of San Francisco.

Delta Center · the cohort outside
01 / 5
Day 2 · Mon Mar 25
Delta Center · the cohort outside
Utah Jazz court · group shot
02 / 5
Day 2 · Mon Mar 25
Utah Jazz court · group shot
Build Utah · the cohort in uniform
03 / 5
Day 2 · Mon Mar 25
Build Utah · the cohort in uniform
PillPack fireside at Edison House
04 / 5
Day 3 · Tue Mar 26
PillPack fireside at Edison House
Founder dinner · University Club of SF
05 / 5
Day 4 · Wed Mar 27
Founder dinner · University Club of SF
No 03 · Recap

The week, session by session

Two halves. Utah's operator depth on the front end, the Bay Area's velocity on the back.

Day 1
Sun · Mar 24

Welcome to the US

  1. Arrivals
    Salt Lake City

    Cohort lands at SLC. Sheraton SLC as base. The trip starts with the people, not a panel.

Day 2
Mon · Mar 25

Utah immersion

  1. Doing Business in Utah — breakfast briefing
    World Trade Center Utah · Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity

    Why Utah keeps quietly outrunning the coasts on operator density and capital efficiency. The state-of-state from the people running it.

  2. Q&A with the founders of Podium
    Podium HQ · Lehi · Eric Rea & Dennis Steele · Co-founders, Podium

    Building a category-defining SMB software business from outside the Bay Area. Live Q&A, unfiltered.

  3. Networking lunch with Album VC
    Album VC HQ

    The Dutch cohort meets the Utah portfolio. The guest list becomes a working group.

  4. Fireside — raising capital & global expansion
    Album VC HQ · Sid Krommenhoek (Album) with David Blake (Degreed), Rob van den Heuvel (Sendcloud) & Constantijn van Oranje

    Two founders who scaled globally from very different starting lines. One investor who has backed both kinds. One conversation.

  5. NBA night at the Delta Center
    Delta Center · Salt Lake City · Hosted by Ryan Smith · Owner, Utah Jazz

    Not a session. The kind of evening that turns a cohort into a network.

Day 3
Tue · Mar 26

Inspiration & connection

  1. Utah — a rising star in tech · breakfast panel
    Cotopaxi HQ · Stephen Jacob (Cotopaxi), Brock Blake (Lendio), Shaun Ritchie (nClouds)

    Three operators on what's pulling builders and capital into Utah — and what the Bay Area still does better.

  2. Utah Capitol Hill visit
    Utah State Capitol

    A guided tour. A group photo on the east steps. A reminder that the state takes the tech industry seriously at the top.

  3. PillPack fireside — selling a company to Amazon
    Edison House · TJ Parker (Founder, PillPack), Geoff Swindle (former CBO, PillPack), Nick Efstratis (EPIC Ventures)

    The billion-dollar acquisition story, told by the founder, the CBO, and the early investor at the same table.

  4. Q&A with Pattern's co-founders
    Pattern Global HQ · Lehi · David Wright & Melanie Alder · Co-founders, Pattern

    Building the world's largest global e-commerce accelerator. What scales, what breaks, what they'd do differently.

  5. Pelion VC Private Summit + matchmaking dinner
    Pelion Ventures · Keynote by Sarika Garg (Cacheflow) · panel with Blake Modersitzki, Jeff Kearl (former CEO, Stance) & Sterling Snow

    Exclusive summit with Pelion's portfolio founders. The kind of room you don't walk into off a cold email.

Day 4
Wed · Mar 27

From Salt Lake to Sand Hill

  1. SLC → San Francisco
    Delta · DL 741 / DL 2414

    Cohort relocates. CitizenM Union Square as the SF base.

  2. State of the Markets — keynote & panel
    SVB · 222 Second Street · Gerald Brady (MD, SVB) · Eli Oftedal (Sr. Researcher, SVB) · Marvin Liao (Diaspora VC) · Keshia Theobald-van Gent (BDEV Ventures)

    The SVB 'State of the Markets' read on US venture, followed by a working panel on what the data means for European founders raising in 2024.

  3. Founder dinner with Mike Lewis — 'When to Jump'
    University Club of San Francisco · Mike Lewis (BDT & MSD Partners), moderated by Ryan Patel

    The Jump Curve, in conversation. EU founders, Bay Area operators, and an author who's interviewed hundreds of them.

Day 5
Thu · Mar 28

Sand Hill Road

  1. Defining your company's principles
    SVB Sand Hill Road · Palo Alto · Jack Fuchs · Operating Partner, Blackhorn Ventures (Stanford lecturer)

    Not a talk. A working exercise — every founder leaves with the two or three principles they actually run their company on.

  2. Founder AMA — Contextual AI
    SVB Sand Hill Road · Palo Alto · Douwe Kiela · Co-founder & CEO, Contextual AI

    A Dutch ML researcher turned Stanford lecturer turned AI founder. Live Q&A on the technical and the unglamorous.

  3. AI for a brighter future — keynote
    SVB Sand Hill Road · Palo Alto · Vivienne Ming · Co-founder & CEO, Socos Labs

    Neuroscience, AI, and the long view. One of the BBC's Top 100 women, in full.

  4. Dinner at the home of Sid Sijbrandij
    Private residence · San Francisco · Sid Sijbrandij (Co-founder & CEO, GitLab) · fireside between Constantijn van Oranje and Marcelo Lebre (President & Co-founder, Remote)

    The conversation you don't get on stage. Two Dutch-rooted founders running globally distributed public-and-near-public companies, in a living room.

Day 6
Fri · Mar 29

Product-led, then home

  1. Product-led growth — closing session
    Netherlands Consulate General · San Francisco · Rene Bonvanie · ex-CMO, Palo Alto Networks · Venture Partner, Battery Ventures

    The PLG playbook from the operator who ran the GTM at one of the most valuable security companies in the world.

  2. Debrief & departure
    Netherlands Consulate General · San Francisco

    Group photo on the consulate steps. A short debrief. By early afternoon the cohort is heading to SFO — different people than the ones who landed in Salt Lake.

No 04 · Recap

Who was in the room

Fourteen Dutch scale-up founders, one shared question: what does it actually take to win in the US?

01
Rick
Channext
02
Alfred
Xprtise
03
Antonie
Freeday
04
Wouter
Pastbook
05
Camilla
CustomerGauge
06
Omar
Archipel Academy
07
Dmitrii
C-Teleport
08
Jorrit
Alphabeats
09
Thomas
SocialDatabase
10
Matthew
Voyc
11
Rob
Sendcloud
12
Dennis / Stefan
Dashmote
13
Richard
RanMarine
14
Daan
Peerby
No 05 · Recap

What founders walked away with

  • A working read on the US capital market in 2024 — directly from SVB's research team, not a newsletter.
  • Operator-level access to Podium, Pattern, Lendio, Cotopaxi and Pelion's portfolio — the Utah playbook for capital-efficient scaling.
  • A first-hand account of selling a company to Amazon, from PillPack's founder, CBO, and seed investor at the same table.
  • Working sessions with Sid Sijbrandij (GitLab) and Marcelo Lebre (Remote) on running a globally distributed company at scale.
  • A cohort of Dutch scale-up founders now on first-name terms with each other and the operators they met — a network that outlasts the trip.
No 06 · Recap

Who we sat down with

World Trade Center UtahPodiumAlbum VCCotopaxiLendionCloudsPatternPelion VenturesCacheflowEPIC VenturesSilicon Valley BankDiaspora VCBDEV VenturesBlackhorn VenturesContextual AISocos LabsGitLabRemoteBattery VenturesNetherlands Consulate General SFUtah JazzScaleNLConsulate General of the Netherlands
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