Year in Review:The highlights of 2023
As the year comes to an end, we want to take a moment and celebrate one of the most active years in Wave’s history.
2023 has been remarkable in many ways. From new portfolio companies, some major funding milestones, team additions, and events to vital learnings from our first write-downs, we’re very proud of everything we accomplished this year.
Today, we’re sharing our key highlights and learnings from 2023. Let’s dive deeper into what has happened during the past 12 months.
1# The most active VC in Finland
Despite the challenging economic situation and the significant drop in startup financing, we continued supporting the ecosystem more actively than ever, claiming the spot as the most active VC in Finland.
From our second fund launched last fall, we have been proud to back already 17 extraordinary young teams: Ambio, Cledja, Solu, Inven, Hashlisht, Onne, Intergrid, KomuHomes, some frogs, Asker, Opeton, TROOPR, Briif, Synergi, Untied, Taika Tech, and Robes Rental.
In most cases, we have been there from day -1, pushing the founders forward months before investing or even establishing the company. In some cases, like with Solu, we’ve even played an important role in bringing co-founders together.
2# Building the next wave of Nordic Gen Z unicorns
It has been thrilling to witness how the excitement towards the next wave of Nordic entrepreneurs has been exponentially growing both within the Nordics and worldwide. This excitement has also been reflected in the increasing pace of subsequent funding rounds.
Over the past year, we have helped 13 teams of Wave II to raise more funding after or with us from exceptional VCs and angels from the Nordics and Europe. In terms of numbers, we have facilitated over 20 investments through more than 200 intros, bringing in a total of 9,2M€ in pre-seed financing for these teams.
3# Continuous learning at the forefront
2023 also brought numerous valuable lessons. Our first two write-downs of Onne and Untied were unfortunate but came with many invaluable learnings. Through these journeys, we now understand better, e.g., the complexities of the wearable tech market and the dynamics of operations-heavy solo-founder ventures.
This year, we also made an extra push to improve the diversity of our deal flow. As a result, approximately half of our investments in 2023 went to female-led teams.
4# Team growth
During the past months, we expanded our Wave family as well. We welcomed three new Investment Managers in Finland, Antonia, Zechen, and Joona, and strengthened our presence in Sweden with Bror and Elis. Emma also joined our team as a Marketing and Communications Manager.
Wave team at Slush. In the picture (from the left): Antonia, Emma, Zechen, Erik, Bror, Joona and Aleksi.
5# A bunch of inspiring events
At the beginning of October, we gathered our limited partners for a breakfast where they could meet our Wave II portfolio and exchange the best practices directly with each other.
We are backed by over 40 investors, who all share the same vision of supporting the most extraordinary young founders to change the world, including founders from Supercell, Wolt, Smartly.io, Aiven, ŌURA, Swappie, Small Giant Games, Enfuce, and many more.
At Slush, we hosted our first-ever breakfast event, “Young Founders X Funders,” with General Catalyst to bring together the most prominent young Nordic founders and the most relevant global VCs for them. It was truly an honor to share our excitement toward these teams with investors who have backed some of the world’s best companies from the very start.
6# Wave & the portfolio in media
At the end of November, our CEO, Erik Kymäläinen, shared our positive view of the future of the Finnish startup ecosystem in Helsingin Sanomat. In the article, he discussed how, according to new statistics gathered by Wave, the number of entrepreneurs who secured their first funding as under 30 years old has almost doubled since 2020 and how 2023 is expected to set a new record again. Read the full article here.
In addition to us, our amazing portfolio received great media coverage during the year. Below are a few highlights:
Mona Ismail, Co-founder & CEO of some frogs interviewed for HS Visio.
Yle interviewed Synergi’s CEO Antti Hämmäinen.
Inven was mentioned on Helsingin Sanomat’s list of AI Startups to watch.
Ambio was featured on Sifted’s list of “7 Finnish startups to watch, according to VCs”
Solu launched the second version of their product after piloting as seen in Talouselämät & Business Insider
Carbo Culture featured in Sifted.
Above all, the opportunity to work with some of the most amazing builders in the Nordic startup ecosystem who are pushing their limits to solve the problems of our generation has continued to be the absolute highlight of our year.
Thanks for everyone being part of our journey this year and have a great start in 2024!
For 2024, we already have a number of exciting news coming out so stay tuned and make sure to follow our channels! We’re active on Medium,Linkedin, Instagram & Twitter.
