Wave Ventures is a Helsinki-based venture capital firm founded in 2016, recognized as Europe's largest Gen Z-led VC fund. The firm is operated by a rotating team of top university students embedded in startup ecosystems across Helsinki, Stockholm, and Tallinn. This unique structure provides Wave with real-time access to emerging innovation communities, allowing them to identify and support promising Gen Z founders across the Nordics and Baltics.
Wave backs pre-seed founders across the Nordics and Baltics, with a particular focus on AI-native companies and young builders, often pre-company, who are thinking in systems rather than features.
The firm's core thesis is that the AI era is producing a generation of founders who have grown up with AI as infrastructure, and that the Nordics risk losing this talent to the US without early, local institutional capital.
Wave writes the first check, often before any other investor is aware the founder exists.
Wave Ventures Fund III closed at $11M in June 2026, five times the size of its previous $2.2M fund.
LPs include founders of Supercell, Wolt, Bolt, Oura, Nokia, GANNI, and Voi, alongside European early-stage VCs and family offices. Follow-on investors in Wave's portfolio include Speedinvest, Cherry Ventures, and byFounders. Alongside the fund close,
Wave launched the Wave Rebellion Grant Program, a $265K no-equity grant for 10 pre-idea Nordic founders, with partner credits from AWS, Anthropic, Lovable, Modal, and Verda.
Leadership
Johannes Korpela is CEO of Wave Ventures, leading the fund's investment strategy and external positioning.
Investment Strategy
Wave writes checks of up to $300K, backing 10–20 early-stage teams per year.
The firm's proximity edge comes from being embedded in the communities where founders are still deciding what to build, university networks, hackathons, and early online communities, before they have a pitch deck or a co-investor.
The Rebellion Grant extends this model to the pre-idea stage: 10 founders per year receive non-dilutive capital and partner credits with no equity requirement.
Notable Investments
Wave Ventures has made over 50 early-stage investments, including:
These investments span various sectors, reflecting Wave's commitment to supporting diverse and innovative Gen Z-led startups across the Nordics and Baltics.
Johannes Korpela — CEO
johannes@wave.ventures
Max Larsson — Investments
max@wave.ventures
Camilla Komulainen — Investments
camilla@wave.ventures
Finland
