Backing the next generation of exceptional
founders earlier than anyone else.
Wave was started in 2016 by university students in Helsinki, on a simple observation: the most exceptional founders of a generation are visible to their own generation first. Ten years on, the thesis hasn't moved — get in the water early, take the real risk, and back people before they look obvious.
Not the follow-on. Not the safe seed after someone else said yes. Wave writes the first institutional check — often before there is a company to put it in. Venture runs on pattern matching; the best founders rarely fit the pattern before their breakout. That gap is where we work.
Angel & pre-seed. Idea, prototype, or pre-company. If you're waiting until it's presentable, you're waiting too long.
First checks around €100K, up to €300K per company — sized for a first build, not a bridge.
Across the Nordics & Baltics, sourced from inside the generation we invest in.
Founded in Helsinki as a student-led fund — the first student-run VC in the Nordics.
Fund II, ~€2M. The rotation model proves itself across cohorts.
Backed 3 of the 5 Nordic startups accepted into Y Combinator that year.
Fund III first close at €7M — the largest fund yet, still run by students.
Fund III final close: €10M, a 5× step-up — plus the €240K Rebellion Grant.
Equity-free grants and partner credits for founders who are pre-idea, pre-funding, or just getting started. No board seat. No dilution. A first push — before your first round, before your first yes, before anyone else is even looking.
"Some of the most exceptional founders don't fit neatly into existing startup programs, accelerators, or university tracks. Venture capital often relies on pattern matching, but the best founders rarely look obvious before their breakouts. The Rebellion Grant is our way of supporting them earlier."— Johannes Korpela, CEO, Wave Ventures
Every investor at Wave is 25 or under — students and new graduates out of Aalto, the University of Helsinki, and universities across the Nordics. When a cohort graduates, it rotates out into an alumni network of founders, operators and investors, and a new one takes the desk. The fund never ages out of its own market.
A deck if you have one. A paragraph if you don't. If you're building in the Nordics or Baltics and nobody has said yes yet — we want to be first.