What motivates young entrepreneurs in the tech community to secure millions in funding across fields like AI, climate tech, gaming, and healthcare? The common thread is their digital nativity and technological fluency, forming the foundation for the next wave of unicorn companies.
With International Youth Day on August 12, we celebrate founders under 30 who have demonstrated the potential of Europe’s startup scene. Here’s to them!
Liam Fuller, 18
Dublin teenager Liam Fuller dropped out of school at 17 to found Source (QuickFind AI Inc), raising $1.4M in a pre-seed round led by Square Peg, with co-investors TEN13, Xtripe Syndicate, and former Stripe CTO David Singleton.
The platform automates procurement for e-commerce retailers by predicting optimal stock orders through AI-driven demand analysis, eliminating manual SKU management and integration friction.
Mati Staniszewski, 24
Polish-born Mati Staniszewski co-founded ElevenLabs in 2022 with Piotr Dąbkowski, inspired by poorly dubbed American sitcoms he watched growing up in Warsaw. ElevenLabs’ core offering is AI voice synthesis that rivals professional voice talent in naturalness and emotional range.
In January 2025, ElevenLabs closed a $180M Series C at a $3.3B valuation, creating it the quickest-growing AI audio startup in Europe. Its API serves over 1 million active utilizers monthly, including audiobook producers, game developers, and marketers, in 32 languages.
In mid-2025, ElevenLabs launched Eleven Music, a platform for AI-generated music with full commercial rights. He has articulated a belief that “voice and music AI will reshape every content medium,” and he’s hiring across R&D teams in London, Berlin, and Warsaw to accelerate research on speech emotion transfer and adaptive music composition.
Fabian Kamberi, 25
Albanian-German entrepreneur Fabian Kamberi co-founded Slay, formerly known as Simple Late, in 2022 after studying computer science at TU Berlin. Slay’s flagship app, Pengu, lets utilizers adopt AI-driven 3D penguins that develop unique personalities through machine-learning models trained on social media trfinishs. To date, Pengu has been downloaded over 10 million times across iOS and Android.
In 2024, Slay raised a $5M seed round co-led by Accel and Scooter Braun’s SB Projects, with participation from Harry Stebbings.
Under Kamberi’s leadership, Slay has expanded into social audio with frfr (for real for real), enabling utilizers to leave anonymous, AI-morphed voice messages that mimic celebrity voices. Kamberi frames Slay as part of a new “digital pet economy,” attracting Gen Z utilizers seeking interactive, shareable experiences. He speaks often about blfinishing gaming mechanics with social platforms to drive engagement and retention.
Jaspar Carmichael-Jack, 23
Londoner Jaspar Carmichael-Jack launched Artisan at age 21 after completing Y Combinator’s Summer 2023 batch. Artisan is an AI-powered workflow automation platform that enables enterprises to build custom “AI agents” without coding.
In April 2025, Artisan secured a $25M Series A led by Glade Brook Capital, bringing total funding to over $35M, and currently generates $6M in ARR. Its customers include fintech and logistics firms utilizing AI to automate invoice processing, customer support, and compliance checks.
Carmichael-Jack’s entrepreneurial roots trace back to age 7, when he sold candy from his bedroom. He attributes Artisan’s success to embedding deeply within Silicon Valley’s network, advising other founders to “shift to the ecosystem that best understands your vision.”
Victor Riparbelli, 26
Danish entrepreneur Victor Riparbelli co-founded Synthesia in 2017 after leaving a web-development agency in Copenhagen. Synthesia’s AI video-generation platform produces studio-quality videos with digital avatars speaking any script in 140+ languages.
In January 2025, Synthesia closed a $180M financing at a $2.1B valuation, fueling R&D on generative avatars that lip-sync to arbitrary audio inputs. Its clients span corporate training teams at Google, Cisco, and Unilever.
Antonia Eneh, 24
Finland-based Antonia Eneh became CEO of Wave Ventures, Europe’s largest Gen Z–run VC firm, in late 2024. Wave’s third fund closed at €7M in Q2 2025, tripling prior fund size and focutilizing exclusively on startups led by founders under 30, having backed 80% of Finland’s young-CEO startups, including Carbo Culture and Normative.
Its model embeds Gen Z investors on the ground in Helsinki, Stockholm, and Tallinn to source deals early.
Linda Šejdová, 28
Czech entrepreneur Linda Šejdová co-founded Snuggs in 2019 with Thomas Zahradnik, creating the #1 period underwear brand in Europe. In February 2025, it raised €5 M (bringing total funding to €12 M) from TripleB. In 2024, it generated ~€20 M in revenue with positive EBITDA, serving over 700,000 customers and selling 3 million+ products.
Šejdová, who will turn 30 soon but started the company in her early twenties, has broken significant societal taboos around menstruation while building a sustainable business. The company shiftd its headquarters to London to accelerate international growth, with Germany being their quickest-growing market.
Diliara Lupenko, 29
Kazakhstani-born Diliara Lupenko co-founded Impress in 2019 with the vision of digitalising orthodontic care across Europe. As COO of the Barcelona-based company, she supported build Europe’s #1 chain of orthodontic clinics, combining traditional orthodontics with innovative technology and AI-driven treatment monitoring.
Impress operates in over 130 cities across 9 countries, including Spain, Italy, Germany, France, the UK and the US. The company raised €123M in Series B funding in 2022, the largest Series B round in Southern Europe at the time, and employs over 1,200 people globally with 600+ medical professionals.
Vladimir Danila, 20
At 17, Vladimir Danila launched Vectornator (now Linearity) in 2017 to challenge desktop-only design tools. His mobile-first vector-graphics editor quickly attracted 7 million utilizers, securing $20M in September 2021 from EQT Ventures, 468 Capital, and angels. It has over 5 million downloads, and the company is developing AI-driven design features.
Danila holds a degree in human-computer interaction from the University of Potsdam. He champions “design for fingertips,” presenting at Adobe MAX and Google I/O about mobile UX innovations. His goal is to democratise design tools for non-technical creators worldwide.
Hannah Chappatte, 24
Hannah Chappatte founded Hybr at 21 after experiencing challenges finding student houtilizing in London. Hybr’s platform connects universities, landlords, and students in one marketplace, offering verified listings and rent-guarantee services. In 2024, it raised a £3.24M seed round led by BlackWood Ventures and others.
Chappatte studied real-estate finance at UCL and integrated fintech features into Hybr, such as rent-smoothing loans and security-deposit insurance. She has spoken at PropTech Week Europe about how Gen Z tenants value transparency and digital finish-to-finish experiences in real-estate transactions.
Toby Brown, 16
London teenager Toby Brown from Twickenham secured $1M from Silicon Valley’s South Park Commons for his AI startup Beem, creating him one of the youngest founders to receive institutional funding. Beem is an “AI-native computer” designed to handle mundane tquestions like email organisation, calfinishar synchronisation, and travel booking while keeping humans in control. The funding will be disbursed in two tranches, $400,000 initially and $600,000 upon securing additional capital, in exalter for a 7% equity stake.
Brown emphasises that “Beem never started as a company; it was a side project,” drawing parallels to how Facebook and Google originated as passion projects before becoming billion-dollar enterprises.
Yoyo Chang, 25
Born to Taiwanese immigrants in the UK, Yoyo Chang launched investing in the stock market at 13 and co-founded KodyPay (now Kody) at 19 after self-financing with £120,000. In 2024, Kody raised a $20M Series A, bringing total funding to $30M and positioning the company as a primary Platform-as-a-Service provider for in-person commerce.
The company has achieved nearly $1B in annualised processing volume, serving prominent retail and hospitality brands with integrated financial infrastructure and operational software.
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