For the fifth year in a row, The Finnish Venture Capital Association is looking for the best Master’s thesis, which examines the private equity and venture capital industry from an innovative point of view.
A winner will receive a reward of 2 500 euros as well as the opportunity to present their work to professionals in the PE & VC industry. In addition, two honourable mentions are awarded to other particularly meritorious theses. With the help of the competition, The Finnish Venture Capital Association aims to arouse students’ interest in the field of venture capital and private equity. At best, the competition can serve as a springboard for your own career, as the works of the participants are reviewed by the association’s research committee, consisting of professionals in the PE/VC industry.
Participation
Any student who has returned the final thesis of a higher university degree and received a grade for their work between 15.10.2022 and 15.10.2023 can participate in the competition. Master’s theses, final theses of a higher university of applied sciences and diploma theses can be entered into the competition. The topic of the thesis must be related to private equity and/or venture capital industry. The evaluation is influenced by the topicality of the subject and the impact of the work, especially from the perspective of the domestic venture capital industry. Additionally, innovation, courage, as well as analytical and critical approach play a significant role. The thesis can be written in Finnish, Swedish or English. We encourage students from all fields of study to participate!
This year’s competition is open for submissions until 15 October 2023. Send your finished thesis and grade as a PDF file to Jonne Kuittinen (jonne.kuittinen@paaomasijoittajat.fi). The grades of the works are not published but collected for background information.
Previous winners
The 2022 competition was won by Antto Piirainen from the Aalto University School of Economics with his work Secondary and Tertiary Buyout Performance and Value Creation. In previous years, the competition has been won by Henry Lencioni (2021) from Aalto University’s Department of Production Economics with his work Assessing Venture Capital Investor Performance Drivers With Machine Learning, Hanken’s Christa Anttila (2020) with her work The Venture Capital Gender Gap from Female Founder Perspective and Isabella Kartila from the Faculty of Law of the University of Helsinki (2019) with her work New Tax Law Welcomes Foreign Investments in Finnish Private Equity and Venture Capital Funds.
Did you know, that the blog posts written by our previous winners and those who received honourable mentions have traditionally been among the most popular content in our social media channels and website! You can read last year’s winner’s post here.
