# Steven Motta

> Steven Motta is the co-founder and CEO of Waveful, an AI-powered social app for sharing passions, building communities and letting creators monetize their content. He wrote his first money-making code at age 9, shipping Minecraft mods that drew more than two million downloads, then designed the first version of Waveful at 16 with his older brother Dennis. By 2025 Waveful had crossed four million users, surpassed $1M in in-app purchases, and became one of the most downloaded social apps of the year. He was the youngest founder in his a16z Speedrun batch and closed a $2.1M seed round in September 2025.

- **Role:** Co-Founder and CEO at Waveful
- **Organizations:** Waveful, a16z Speedrun
- **From:** Italy
- **Nationality:** Italian
- **Education:** Accelerator program (accepted as founder, youngest in batch), a16z Games Speedrun
- **Known for:** Co-founded and leads Waveful, an AI social app with 4M+ global users, Surpassed $1M+ in in-app purchases through a pure B2C model, Waveful reportedly became one of the most downloaded social apps of 2025

## Career timeline

- **2013-2015** — Created MCPE Mods (Minecraft mods) as a child, reaching 2M+ downloads
- **2016-2017** — Released Speedy Car, his first published mobile game
- **2017-2020** — Built Cuddly Dragons, a mobile game with 30k+ downloads, made at age 14
- **2020-02** — Co-founded Waveful with brother Dennis Motta; designed the first version at 16
- **2020-12** — Launched Waveful on Google Play and the App Store on December 12
- **2025** — Selected for a16z Speedrun as the youngest founder in the batch; Waveful named fastest-growing company in the cohort
- **2025-09** — Closed a $2.1M seed round led by a16z Speedrun and Italian Angels for Growth
- **2026** — Featured in Lenny Rachitsky's 'Tech Department of One' series

## Achievements

- Co-founded and leads Waveful, an AI social app with 4M+ global users
- Surpassed $1M+ in in-app purchases through a pure B2C model
- Waveful reportedly became one of the most downloaded social apps of 2025
- Youngest founder in his a16z Speedrun batch and the only fully Italian startup selected
- Raised a $2.1M all-equity seed round in September 2025
- Shipped Minecraft mods with 2M+ downloads before age 12
- Released LuckyUI, an open-source design system for AI-native development in Flutter and Next.js

## Latest updates

- **2026** — Featured in Lenny Rachitsky's 'Tech Department of One' series discussing building in 2026
- **2025-09** — Announced Waveful's $2.1M seed round to expand in the U.S. and develop AI features

## Links

- Website: https://waveful.com
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-motta
- GitHub: https://github.com/Stemo688

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/steven-motta
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-21