Good morning.

I’m off to Toronto to see my mom and sisters and new nephew (I am a great uncle again). Rachel is flying over from New York city as well to hang out.

I had a fantastic week in Amsterdam with my partner Matt seeing a few of our portfolio companies (Secfi and Alpaca).

A lot of my fintech friends were in town for the Money 20/20 show so it was a good excuse for us to brainstorm, share notes, strategize and discuss the macro and markets.

I caught up with some of my LP’s, family offices, allocators and took a bunch of pitches from local entrepreneurs.

Amsterdam has always been a favorite city of mine, but when you get great weather and long summer days, it is unreal.

I walked over 30 miles this week and I was struck by the post COVID vibrance, the cleanliness and the continued increase in quality of the food. I stayed at the Conservatorium hotel for a second time and it is by far the best urban hotel I have ever visited. The lobby, location, rooms, food and vibe are second to none.

Amsterdam is the home of some massive tech companies like Adyen and Elastic so the amount of money in this small city is putting a lot of upward pressure on home prices. It will be interesting to see how the city looks in five years.

I will run through some of the highlights – mostly centered around food – below:

Here I am with Matt and Etoro founder Ronen Assia at a fave Chinese restaurant – Oriental City:

I met with my buddy/fintech investor Sheel of course for Fintech and Falafel and also was joined by Matt and Israeli fintech investor Adi Levanon (who I have not seen in years):

The Israeli food at Martinot was fantastic…menu below:

I finally met Richard Betts in person. Richard is an American living in Amsterdam and building Komos a now very fast growing Tequilla product and brand. I am a small personal investor. I had Richard on my podcast back in 2020 and they have come a long way.

Richard loves food and is a sommelier as well. He took me to for one of the best steaks I have ever eaten at ‘Sagardi’ and we had this incredible bottle of Spanish wine:

Until next time Amsterdam…