Holland Venture’s first Growth Session, with guest speaker Roelant Prins – CCO of Adyen – was a great success. In an interactive session with entrepreneurs and the Holland Venture team participating, Roelant shared his experiences in managing a fast growing organization and setting up foreign operations.

Adyen is a Payment Service Provider that provides both online and offline payment services for shops, web shops and market places. Since the start in 2006 Adyen has grown rapidly to a multinational company with offices in 13 countries, over 340 employees active on six continents.

Adyen processes approximately EUR 40 billion in payments annually for various clients including Facebook, Spotify and Groupon. In 2015 Adyen expects to make a turnover of EUR 320 million. Adyen has received several equity investments. In its most recent investment round it saw the investment fund Iconiq capital join the shareholder base in a transaction valuing Adyen at more than EUR 2 billion.

As CCO, Roelant Prins is responsible for the commercial activities at Adyen. He talked about the rapid growth of the company and the way the organization deals with this growth. During the Growth Session he discussed interesting subjects such as scaling up internationally, product development, organization and culture, maintaining the startup mentality, funding strategy and his own experiences in Silicon Valley.

The Growth Session was received enthusiastically by all participants and the extensive interaction inspired the entrepreneurs of the Holland Venture portfolio companies. Roelant’s experiences and hands-on tips of were considered very valuable and helpful for the entrepreneurs in realizing their own foreign growth strategies.