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Dear reader,
We celebrated King’s Day in late April. For the first time since 2019, the Netherlands was able to come together in person for street fairs and kids’ games to celebrate being Dutch. With several celebrations, the West Coast was colored orange as well. It was a great opportunity for me to finally meet many of you at King’s Day in San Francisco and Los Angeles. And Deputy Consul General Vincent Storimans visited Salt Lake City and San Diego.
Yet this year, King’s Day is not the only that San Francisco will be orange. In September, we will welcome our King and Queen here in the Bay Area. The Royal Couple is scheduled to visit California and Texas, with several Cabinet Ministers and CEO’s of Dutch multinationals. The visit will be combined with a trade mission on Life Sciences & Health and Urban Mobility and Cycling.
Being the only Dutch Consulate General on the US West Coast, there is always a trade mission, round table, or governmental visit to be organized. But this is definitely one of the biggest projects in our history.
We’re happy and honored to welcome our King and Queen in the heart of tech, where they can meet the fantastic Dutch community and learn from the many innovative Dutch and US businesses here who call the Bay Area home. We are working out the details of the Royal Visit, so please keep an eye on our social media to stay abreast.
Best, Dirk Janssen
Consul General of the Netherlands in San Francisco
PS: our colleagues at the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency in San Francisco are looking for an Assistant Area Director.
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PS II: Want to discuss anything? Please plan a meeting or a call with me or my team.
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- Dutch ChannelEngine raised $50 million. The company helps retailers connect with and sell through more than 200 marketplaces.
- Rabobank is the newest corporate partner of Holland in the Valley. Rabobank will provide Dutch startups with network, knowledge, and financial advice, and will house the ScaleNL program team.
- RobbReport writes about LA-based Dutch social enterprise Sheltersuit Foundation: “To me, it’s important that if you do good, you do good from the bottom up.”
- Dutch bike brand Gazelle opened an experience center in Santa Cruz, CA, to expose more people to bikes and to make riding easier, better, safer, and more fun.
- During the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, the Consulate General and the Dutch Games Association hosted an event to bring Dutch and American participants together.
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- Dutch-based PhotonDelta secures USD 1.15 billion to “make the Netherlands the home of the next generation of semiconductors.”
- Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy and Invest-NL launch new USD 260 million Deep Tech Fund.
- San Francisco Conservatory buys record label Pentatone, based Baarn, the Netherlands.
- Stevie Wonder samples Smart Glasses made by Dutch Envision at the 2022 CSUN Assistive Technology Conference in Anaheim, CA.
- Bubbles-founder Tom Medema and team raised USD 8.5 million to “further develop Bubbles’ platform while ramping up the company’s customer acquisition efforts.”
- San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art celebrates Piet Mondrian’s 150th birthday with a unique Miffy meets Mondrian collaboration for their museum store.
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King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima will visit California on September 6 and 7. The Royal Couple is scheduled to travel to San Francisco and Silicon Valley for an economic working visit. After the West Coast they’ll travel to Austin and Houston, Texas.
The working visit highlights the kingdom’s excellent economic relations with California and Texas. There will be a central focus on a range of themes, including transatlantic cooperation, climate change, the energy transition, and healthcare.
Several Members of Cabinet will also join, including Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Liesje Schreinemacher, Education Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf, Health Minister Ernst Kuipers, the Economic Development Minister of Curaçao Ruisandro Cijntje, and Minister for the Environment Vivianne Heijnen.
A trade mission to San Francisco and Los Angeles involving businesses and knowledge institutions active in life sciences and health and urban mobility and cycling will also take place along with the working visit.
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Launch of ScaleNL Accelerator
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Lauch ScaleNL
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The ScaleNL Accelerator was officially launched. The 11 participating startups met for the first time at the US Embassy The Hague. Over 12 weeks, they will deep-dive into doing business in the United States, focusing on investment, market fit, and mindset.
Startup Liaison Michael Dooijes and Techleapnl envoy Constantijn Van Oranje-Nassau, on a tech visit to San Francisco, wished them all the best and explained how the Dutch ecosystem can learn from Silicon Valley.
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New Honorary Consul in Los Angeles
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The Netherlands has a new Honorary Consul in Los Angeles: Reinout Oerlemans, Chairman and Chief Creator Officer of media company 3BMG. Oerlemans succeeds architect Jan van Tilburg, who served as Honorary Consul for 12 years.
“I am honored to represent the Dutch government here in Los Angeles, and to connect the Netherlands, where I was born, with LA, the place I call my home,” he said. “I am looking forward to supporting Dutch nationals, businesses and cultural institutions that want to build a strong partnership with Los Angeles. Together, we can create opportunities and synergies and find solutions for global challenges. I’m looking forward to my new role as honorary consul and to collaborating with all participants in these endeavors.”
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Techleap.nl visits Silicon Valley
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Fourteen Dutch founders traveled to Silicon Valley with Techleap.nl envoy Constantijn Van Oranje-Nassau to meet with venture capitalists, tech entrepreneurs, and the Holland in the Valley network.
It was the kick-off of Techleap’s Global Entrepreneur Initiative, to connect Dutch founders in NL and with those abroad. Goal was to expand their network and accelerate their growth.
The entrepreneurs connected with the local ecosystem during a number of meetings, including an inspiring trip to Angel Island, where immigrants used to arrive in the Western United States. The group was also welcomed by Silicon Valley Bank to San Francisco Giants baseball game.
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Scaling on the US West Coast
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In this new video series from MT/Sprout and ScaleNL, you’ll meet Dutch founders and innovators in Silicon Valley, Seattle, and Los Angeles.
There’s a new episode every two weeks. Carmen Pop is chief of staff for the CFO of Asana, after working for multiple tech giants as Dropbox and LinkedIn. She shares her tips about scaling in Silicon Valley: “If you build too much process, it's going to slow you down.”
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Mobility Trade Mission in CA & AZ
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A Dutch trade mission on mobility, obviously, starts with a bike ride through San Francisco
Several innovative companies in smart and green mobility connected with the Bay Area and Arizona this week, together with Kees van der Burg, Director-General for sustainable Mobility at Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management.
The delegation visited the factory of Tesla and met with Maarten Sierhuis of Renault Nissan Mitsubishi Innovation Lab TLV. They networked with local mobility companies and organizations, and traveled to Sacramento to meet with California DMV and California Air Resources Board. On the last day, the participants got to know City of Phoenix, State of Arizona as a thriving mobility hub.
After meetings with Lucid Motors, Arizona Department of Transportation, Greater Phoenix Economic Council and Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG), they connected with Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, DG Van der Burg and innovative companies.
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King's Day on the US West Coast
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On King’s Day, Dutch people abroad feel a little homesick. Yet, at the King’s Day celebration in San Francisco, it felt as if we were at home: the windmill, lots of orange, and the people.
Dutch School Silicon Valley organized kids games and Henny Neys hosted a flea market. There was Dutch and Indonesian food and plenty of sunshine. Congratulations to the members of the Oranje Comité for organizing a fantastic event. And thank you to all the sponsors who made it happen.
San Francisco City Hall was colored orange on King’s Day and Consul General Dirk Janssen and San Francisco Protocol Officer Meron Foster raised the Dutch flag at City Hall.
There were also celebrations in Anchorage, Denver, Seattle, San Diego (Rancho Santa Fe), Los Angeles (Long Beach), Arizona, Lake City and many other places.
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Dutch Heritage in Tomales, CA
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The Van Der Have family donated their family Bible to their church in Tomales, CA. It turned out to be a States Bible (Statenbijbel) from 1654, the first translation from Hebrew and Greek into Dutch. With permission of the family, the church decided to donate the historic Bible to the State Bible Museum in Leerdam, the Netherlands. Consul General Dirk Janssen visited Tomales and will deliver the Bible to the museum in June.
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Life Sciences & Health visit to SF & LA
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Let's improve healthcare together. A life sciences and health mission visited Los Angeles and San Francisco in April. Eight innovative Dutch companies connected with US counterparts, public, private and academic hospitals, knowledge and research institutes and important health networks.
They started in Los Angeles, where they connected with DEARhealth, Cedars-Sinai Accelerator Innovation Space, Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, BioscienceLA and UCLA Health. In San Francisco they met with California Life Sciences (CLS), Intuitive Ventures Intuitive Surgical Ltd, UC Berkeley Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology and UCSF Rosenman Institute.
They met up with the Holland in the Valley network and Techleapnl in Silicon Valley.
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- May 23-25 - Pop-Up Consulate San Diego
- May 22-26 - Agriculture trade mission
- May 26, 7.00 PM - Niki Jacobs “The Mauthausen Trilogy” at the Consulate General. Email us for more details
- June 5-10 – Cybersecurity Conference RSA trade mission to San Francisco
- June 20-30 - ScaleNL visits San Francisco, Los Angeles & Washington, D.C.
- June 26: European Consulates participate in San Francisco Pride Parade. Join and celebrate diversity
- September 6-7 – Visit of Dutch King and Queen to Bay Area, with a Mobility and LSH trade mission
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“And the 12 points from The Netherlands go to… the brave people of Ukraine.”
Together with several Consulates General in San Francisco,
we organized a Eurovision-themed fundraiser for Ukraine.
All proceeds go to the International Red Cross.
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Cultural events with Dutch artists on the West Coast. Find more events at Dutch Culture USA.
California
Los Angeles
San Francisco
New Mexico
Alaska
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Living With Scents at Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco features 40 artists who work with and around the sense of smell. The exhibition includes work by five Netherlands-based designers and artists: Julie de Mol, Jody Kocken, Zsofia Kollar, Unfold and Liza Witte. Their work reflects and participates in the growing culturalization of all things olfactory. And yes, you can smell their work too.
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