Venture Capital & Private Equity

IFT is home to three taught Master's programmes and a PHD. We have a substantial research portfolio in digital finance and alternative investment and all our students can benefit from extensive links to world leading industry in London and internationally, state-of-the-art facilities at UCL and our esteemed teaching staff who are experts in their fields.

Teaching at IFT is unique, since it is delivered by both academic and industry experts. We believe this provides students with the best of both worlds, providing a rigorous foundation of key theories and concepts, and consolidating this with an understanding of real-world applications.

The past decade has seen a dramatic growth of start up ecosystems and huge shifts across the world of business. With this comes a growing demand for Private Equity and Venture Capital - a new class of investors that help businesses at every stage of their existence. Our MSc programme is the first in the world to match the emerging field of Financial Technology with the study of Private Capital, bridging the gap between finance, technology and new business models. The MSc is a unique opportunity to examine how business models are impacted and driven by information and communication technology and the role of private capital to assist and fully implement their potential.

For more information on the IFT click here

Superpowers

Venture Capital
Private Markets
Fintech Start-ups

Keywords

Venture Capital
Private Equity
Financial Technology
New business models

Francesca Romana Medda, FICE

Professor of Applied Economics and Finance

Francesca Medda is Professor of Applied Economics and Finance at the University College London (UCL). She is the Founder and Director of the UCL Institute of Finance & Technology. From 2020, Medda has coordinated the digital strategy in the Italian Financial Conduct and Supervisory Authority (Consob). In Consob she led three main projects on the digitalisation of supervisory activities. She also coordinated the group dedicated to the Consob regulatory sandbox and is a member of the Italian Fintech Committee. Her research focuses mainly on innovative finance and technology, sustainable finance, and impact investments. Her work is published in leading academic and practitioner journals. Since 2012 she has served as economic adviser to the UK Ministry of Environment and Agriculture (Defra) and the UK Ministry of Finance (HM Treasury). Since 2016 Medda has been Vice-President of the UK Parliamentary and Scientific Committee. She has worked actively with the private and public sector, including The European Investment Bank, The World Bank, UNESCO, and UN Habitat. Professor Medda holds several research grants of more than £15m, two of which pertain to the application of complexity analysis in the real world. In 2023, she is on the Standout 45 Women in Fintech, for making a real and lasting impact in FinTech, over and above her day-to-day role.
Dr Maurizio Fiaschetti

Lecturer in Banking and Finance

Maurizio Fiaschetti is Lecturer in Banking and Finance at IFT. Before joining UCL, he was Assistant Professor in Finance, Risk and Banking at the University of Nottingham Business School, where he served as Director of the MSc in Banking. Previously, he was Lecturer in Banking and Finance and Director of the MSc in Finance at SOAS, University of London, and has held research positions at Oxford University and at Universita’ di Roma – Tor Vergata.

Maurizio has worked as an advisor and research officer to the Italian Bankers Association, the think tank Fondazione Manlio Masi, the Italian National Institute of Statistics and at the Ministry for the Environment. Maurizio’s background is in International Economics and Econometrics and his research interests are:
• Applied Econometrics, particularly on panel data and categorical dependent variables models
• Venture Capital and Private Equity
• Banking
• Economic Geography, particularly clustering algorithms and applications of spatial econometric models to spillover effects and hedonic pricing models.

Testimonials

" I came across IFT when researching for a programme that would combine a specialisation in finance, while developing my quantitative and programming skills to better position me for the job market. Throughout the programme, practical exercises and coursework have helped me to put into practice my financial and coding skills to address current challenges through the adoption of ML and AI models. The lectures were able to create an intractive environment to discuss case studies and material that also helped me to further develop my problem- solving and communication skills."Andrea Bassini MSc Student (2021/2022)

Advantages

Sponsor a PHD student

If you would like one of our students to apply their learning in the real world, why not sponsor a PHD. Sponsorship costs £20k and the IP will be yours.

Banking and Digital Finance Msc

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