How the World Cup partnership between Bridgit and San Francisco Chamber of Commerce was formed

Everything is dots. It is up to us whether we give those dots meaning.

Less than two years ago, Latvia's largest state business visit to the U.S. took place, accompanied by the President of Latvia, Edgars Rinkevics, led by the Minister of Economics, Viktors Valainis, and managed by Latvijas Investīciju un attīstības aģentūra - LIAA. Our group's consulting companies, enriga and Y Accelerate, assisted by setting up bilateral meetings between Latvia's corporations, start-ups, and ecosystem organizations and businesses and organizations in the Bay Area. These included CEOs, decision-makers and experts from Microsoft, Meta, Seabury Capital, Draper Capital, Minerva University, University of California, Berkeley, and the Alchemist Accelerator.

I am also the representative of the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) in the USA. Since Aigars Rostovskis, the LCCI President, and Katrina ZARINA, the LCCI CEO were in town, I introduced them to Rodney Fong, the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce President & CEO, and Anita LW Huang, Chief of Staff. Our contact has been warm since then.

When we launched Bridgit: Your social life,settled this spring and planned our strategy around partnering with small businesses in our target neighborhoods in SF, it felt natural to reach out to SFCC. Anita brought me and the team to meet with Priscilla Young and Saul Ponce de Leon a few days later. Fast forward, Bridgit is the official AI business and fan-matching partner for San Francisco's Goal Rush - the citywide campaign during the World Cup across 100+ neighborhood businesses. You might have read more on that in my previous post (link in comment).

Sometimes, the real ROI is not what you see (or don't see) straight away. It might be something that you manage to pull out even years after. The dots that got connected were Toms Zvidrins, the former LIAA representative in the USA, Katrina Zarina at Latvijas Tirdzniecības un rūpniecības kamera, and Anita Huang at SFCC. And I am grateful to you and the teams and stakeholders at LIAA, LCCI and SFCC for the trust and collaboration.