Scaling Europe
00:01:13 · Margarethe Böhme, Sebastian Johnson
[00:01:13] S1: No. It's it's interesting, actually, because, you know, Wave Ventures came out of Slush, so the the conference in Helsinki. So it was actually the first ever dorm room fund in Europe, And it started out in 2016. We internally tend to call it fund zero sometimes because it was underneath the umbrella of Slush. The first professionalized fund came, in 2022, fund two. It was, a €2,000,000 fund backed some great companies. So for example, Safon and their angel round, that turned out to be the biggest pre seed round in, Swedish history at that point in time. We also backed Inven. They raised the largest Series A for founders under 30 in Finland ever. So we got some really good companies in there, the first YC companies for the fund when the Swedish and Finnish founders were starting to explore what's on the other side of the The Atlantic. And now with Fundfree, we basically realized that, you know, we have been so community focused. We have built up initiatives like Founder's House, and we realized, okay. We can supercharge this. There is so, so much happening in The Nordics, especially with the next generation. If you look at, like, Lovable, Legora, Tandem Health, all of these companies have been built by young entrepreneurs. So we realized there's so, so much so, so much happening, so many amazing people building. And we wanted to basically be a fund that was built for them. So that is our goal. [00:02:40] S0: Were you involved in the fundraising process itself?
00:02:40 · Sebastian Johnson, Margarethe Böhme
[00:02:40] S0: Were you involved in the fundraising process itself? [00:02:42] S1: Yes. I was. So I joined the fund in November 2025 as a partner, so right after I came back from from the Velocity Fellowship. So at that point in time, we we were underway with fundraising. So we'd done first close in in, I would say, like, q one, q two of twenty twenty five. And we were still on that point. The last fund had been €2,000,000, and we were going to get it to 10. So we were just pushing and pushing and had some experience from it. So I was the first non founding employee at an €80,000,000 fund that was established in Sweden in 2022, 'twenty three. And I'd seen my former colleagues who had exited their companies, IPO ed them, fundraised. And I was like, Okay, what can I learn? So I took those learnings to Wave. And we went out, and we were like, we're going to have the best LP base out there. So we have a lot of the unicorn founders from The Nordics, great family offices, and operators from across Europe, The US, some in The Middle East. And we just wanted to build the best, like, value for our founders with the with the base. [00:03:51] S0: And how did the LPs react or resonate with the thesis that that that you kind of pitched them with?
00:03:51 · Sebastian Johnson, Margarethe Böhme
[00:03:51] S0: And how did the LPs react or resonate with the thesis that that that you kind of pitched them with? [00:03:56] S1: I think a lot of them... Or, like, I would say, a lot of the ones who committed at least and and many more reacted super positively because I think there are a lot of funds in Europe, and many of them more traditional in a sense. Right? So you've had either people who have been leaders in different industries who have started, investing in that vertical, or you have exited entrepreneurs who are like, okay. I'm gonna go go into investing now. For us, it was more... Our our pitch was always that, you know, we are all under 25. We know our peers. We understand what they need. They're the first, like, actual AI native generation building. They have a whole different landscape that they're working within than the ones that, you know, maybe entrepreneurs ten years back didn't have. Like, it's very globalized. You can do just about anything. So they need their first partner to understand that and be able to help them navigate it. And we, yeah, we kinda built our thesis off of that. [00:04:56] S0: Tell me about your role. You know, your managing partner, you know, 23. What what does that look like on a day to day basis?
00:04:56 · Sebastian Johnson, Margarethe Böhme
[00:04:56] S0: Tell me about your role. You know, your managing partner, you know, 23. What what does that look like on a day to day basis? [00:05:01] S1: Well, you know, like, we we have a... We're a small team. Like, four of us in the investment team, two in the marketing team. We have a very flat hierarchy. So, like, I just see my job, like, internally as being basically the person who sees to it that all of us can perform at the highest possible level. So we have super high agency team, members, who, you know, they've built companies before or exited them. Like, they really know what they wanna build with Wave, and my job is just supporting them. But I also see it as basically more of a strategic role. I think, like, we are we are, of course, very niched in a sense, but there's so, so much that we can do for our founders. And there is so, so much value that we can bring just if we work towards this strategically in a way. And in order to kind of get to that goal of being a new type of venture fund that this generation deserves, there is so, so much that we can do. [00:05:58] S0: Oh, what do you think that really looks like? What does the... You know, there's there's some interesting things about the Wave Ventures model. Specifically, there's a lot of team rotation. You're obviously all very young. What are your key beliefs about the way Venture needs to serve the next generation founders?
00:06:14 · Margarethe Böhme
[00:06:14] S1: So to start off with the rotational model, the reason we have it is that we see that, okay. Like, when I'm 30, I probably won't know the best people who are young, who are building. I might not really understand their needs. I might not be as in tune. And we just wanna make sure that, like, the people who are coming into Wave and leading it and steering it forward are super well connected to the base that they're serving. And in terms of what venture should look like, in my opinion, a lot of European firms have gotten quite comfortable. Because I think, you know, before the Americans started coming in, it was fine to have these, like, DD processes that, like, took a month or more. And you could basically just come in and say, oh, but we have, you know, we have connections to this industry. I might give you a couple of intros. But there... There's no scalability in that model itself. Like, we approach Wave as a start up. Like, this is our company that we're building, and our customers, like, the people we serve are the founders. So our services have to be top notch, like, whichever way you twist and turn them. Right? And to me, like, the biggest, biggest thing is that we we talk a lot about, like, value add per dilution. So the amount we dilute a company with, like, the Wave stake, we have to make sure that, like, the value we provide exceeds that stake. And that is... Like, if anyone ever came to me and said, like, I don't feel like you brought value to my cap table, like, that was be... That would be the biggest thing for me ever. Like, I I would change the entire way I was working. And to me, that's like, how can we actually serve our companies? Like, what do they need? You know, when starting out, you might be a fantastic technical person who's gonna build, like, a world changing product. There are so many tiny, tiny hurdles on the way. They get bigger and bigger, of course. But, like, has nobody actually built, like, AI native systems for their their portfolio? Why has nobody ever thought about, like, how can we actually scalably get them to access our networks? How can we do all these different things? So we've been, yeah, tinkering a bit with those those types of things. More to come.
00:08:28 · Sebastian Johnson, Margarethe Böhme
[00:08:28] S0: And and you mean it. You... Because you've got this rotation, but it's all about keeping the firm young and close to founders. What does your career look like at Wave? Is this sort of like a tour of duty for this specific fund? Do you come on board for a specific amount of time? What does that look like? [00:08:42] S1: Exactly. So, usually, you would stay with Wave for two years. So, like, all of us are entirely full time. This is... Everything that we're doing is Wave and and founder sales. I kind of... You you... Of course, you can view it in, like, a short term perspective that, like, you serve this fund and these founders, and then you're out. For me, it's very different. Like, I kind of view mine and the team's role as building, like, the foundation for Wave and Founder's House and everything around it to become institutions. And, I think there's so, so much that we can do, so many things that we can question. Like, there are norms of how things are done and venture that we can question because we're young, and we can, like, reimagine them. And I think it's more about that, that, like, every single person that comes in that has, like, a background as a builder, as a counter, they can come in and question, like, why is something done like this? So I think it's really good to have these new perspectives come into the team.