Wave Ventures, Europe’s largest Gen Z-run venture capital firm, announces its third fund at €7 million, tripling the size of its previous fund and cementing its position as a leading early-stage backer of Gen Z founders across the Nordics and Baltics.
Wave’s third fund is backed by a diverse network of investors, including founders of Slack, Bolt, Skype, Supercell, Wolt, Silo AI, and Smartly.io, as well as European early-stage VCs, and family offices.
Founded in 2016, Wave Ventures has established a strong track record in identifying exceptional early-stage talent.
Over its first two funds, Wave Ventures has made over 50 initial investments as the first backer and invested in nearly 80 per cent of VC-backed Finnish startups led by CEOs under 30. Wave Ventures’ previous investments include, for example, Inven, Intergrid, Exa Laboratories (YC S24), Vetnio (YC W25), Paebbl, Normative, and Carbo Culture.
Wave’s model is grounded in a core principle: proximity to the next generation of builders. The fund is operated entirely by a small rotating team of top Gen Z investors embedded in startup ecosystems across Helsinki, Stockholm, and Tallinn.
This structure provides Wave with real-time access to the communities where the most ambitious Gen Z founders are emerging, often before they appear on the radar of VCs.
Now, with Fund III, Wave plans to scale this approach across the Nordics and Baltics, aiming to invest in 3 to 10 new teams per country each year, focusing on first-ticket angel and pre-seed rounds up to €100,000.
I spoke to CEO Antonia Eneh to learn more.
According to Eneh, Wave differs from most investors in a profound way:
“We bet on our own generation. We've grown up alongside the founders we back, so we know exactly what exceptional looks like.
We’re just as young and hungry as they are and ready to go the extra mile for them. Being peers, not just observers, gives us a real advantage in finding the next standout founders.”
According to Eneh, Wave’s team are “literally in the room, same classes, co-working spaces, hackathons, and founder groups."
"Our team lives inside these ecosystems and is part of them. For example, in Sweden, our team members Elis Hodzic and Bror Nordström have built the Founders House, a community for top emerging talent.”
More young people than ever are going all-in on building companies. Eneh attributes this to a generational shift where entrepreneurship is becoming the top path for talented individuals in their twenties.
Eneh asserts that Gen AI and open-source technologies are lowering the barriers to starting and scaling companies.
“AI is unlocking a new era of speed and scale: young founders are moving faster than ever, thinking bigger, and building globally from day one. This generation understands the problems that matter and has the tools to solve them. Wave is built to find them and back them first.”
In terms of patterns or signals that identify successful founders early, Eneh shared that their startup is rarely the first exceptional thing they’ve done.
“The most promising founders tend to have been building things early on. They’re hungry and see opportunities where others see obstacles.”
Also, every ecosystem is different, and these people can be found in different places.
“ For example, in Sweden, we often see fully technical founding teams with a clear mindset of conquering the world.
In Finland, the talent has emerged from communities like Slush and other ecosystem initiatives, with new ones emerging like FR8.
And in Estonia, we’re seeing people building their first scalable companies straight out of high school.”
Further, what all builders from different ecosystems share is a global outlook from day one.
“Recognising these patterns and knowing where and how to look in each local context has been key to finding exceptional talent early.”
Given Wave has an age-specific model and rotating team structure, I wondered how they retain institutional memory and investor consistency.
According to Eneh, the team doesn’t change at once. Rather, it always has newer and more experienced members working together to ensure a smooth handover of knowledge, relationships, and the tips and tricks that make its model work.
She sees this rotation as Wave’s superpower.
“We continuously bring in new top talent who then find and are surrounded by the next top founders. This keeps us fresh and constantly ahead of the curve. Also, our model itself becomes a “launchpad” for exceptional people.”
Wave’s investment model has proven successful not only for the entrepreneurs but also for its investors. According to Eneh,
“They see Wave as their first way to gain access to the most promising young talent across Europe. Now we’re doing it on an even bigger scale.”
Cal Henderson, co-founder of Slack, said:
“Wave Ventures has a truly unique advantage, connecting to the most promising young European entrepreneurs before any other investors could ever have them on their radar.
Having seen firsthand the incredible talent and drive of the youth emerging from Finland and the Nordics, I believe we’re about to witness a wave of incredible new companies built by this next generation of founders.”
Lead image: Wave Ventures. Photo: uncredited.
