When I joined the Master of Finance (MFin) at Cambridge Judge Business School, I knew I wanted to deepen my technical finance skills. What I did not fully expect was how much the programme would open doors into entrepreneurship, impact investing and the world of search funds and acquisition entrepreneurship.
Over the past year, I have been able to test and refine my interests across different types of organisations, sectors and geographies, all while based in Cambridge. This reflects both the flexibility of the MFin and the strength of the wider Cambridge ecosystem.
Learning impact investing in Africa
During my first term, I had the opportunity to work remotely with an African impact venture: a water pump company helping thousands of people in remote communities gain reliable access to clean water. Together with Rem on Campus, a pro-bono consulting practice working with the best business schools in the world, and over a period of two months, I helped the team structure their go-to-market strategy and strengthen partnerships across the region, working alongside a former PwC partner and owner.
This experience showed me how finance and strategy can directly support businesses that deliver social impact. It was a powerful reminder that financial skills are not limited to capital markets or corporate finance but can be applied to solve real-world problems such as access to water in underserved communities.
Understanding how investors think at Cambridge Capital Group
My next step was to join Cambridge Capital Group, the oldest angel investor network in the UK, for 4 months. My role focused on assessing pre-seed and seed opportunities in medtech, biotech, AI, software and other technology-driven sectors. I spent a lot of time reviewing pitches, analysing business models and thinking carefully about risk, return and scalability.
Through this work, I gained practical insight into how early-stage investors evaluate opportunities, meeting outstanding entrepreneurs and founders, building investment theses and making decisions in environments of high uncertainty. It helped me understand what investors look for in founders and ventures and what needs to be demonstrated when seeking funding. It also gave me a clearer view of how different sectors are evolving and where capital is flowing.
Supporting deeptech ventures through EnterpriseTECH
I then joined EnterpriseTECH, a programme led by the Entrepreneurship Centre at Cambridge Judge Business School that supports early-stage ventures with their most critical challenges. As a mentor, I worked with Mimic, a smart concrete venture, on their internationalisation thesis for the Middle East and Singapore.
My focus was on exploring potential markets and how to scale a technically complex product globally. EnterpriseTECH allowed me to work closely with founders, understand their constraints and apply both strategy and finance in a very practical way. It was another step in confirming my interest in entrepreneurial finance and in supporting deeptech ventures that have the potential to transform industries.
Bringing strategy and finance together through the Group Consulting Project
Through my MFin Group Consulting Project (GCP), I worked with Fraiya Ultrasound, a leading AI medtech startup that is changing how ultrasounds for pregnant women are performed and how anomalies in the foetus are detected early. This project was a fantastic opportunity to merge the worlds I enjoy most: strategy and finance.
Our work focused on helping Fraiya build their 5-year strategic plan and developing financial projections to support their next investment round. We had to translate clinical and technological innovation into a credible growth and funding story, grounded in realistic assumptions and robust analysis. Working with Fraiya showed me how financial modelling and strategic thinking can directly support a mission-driven, high-growth venture in health technology.
Co-founding the entrepreneurship through acquisition (ETA) club
One of the key reasons I applied to the Cambridge MFin was to deepen my understanding around the entrepreneurship through acquisition (ETA) model. Together with an MBA colleague, I co-founded the ETA special interest group (SIG) club at Cambridge Judge. Through the club, I have met more than 70 people, including searchers, investors, advisors, mentors, funds and CEOs who have acquired and are now running companies. With the club members, we attended the LBS ETA conference, one of the most relevant events in the ETA space worldwide and helped co-organise one of their sessions with OnetoOne Asset Management, a fund based in Spain investing in search funds.
It is exciting to see both MBA and MFin students considering ETA as part of their future career options. For many of us, the idea of becoming an entrepreneur by acquiring and growing an existing business is a compelling alternative to traditional corporate or consulting paths. Our aim with the club is to raise awareness of ETA within the Cambridge community, connect students with practitioners and investors and share resources, experiences and practical guidance for those interested in this route.
Joining a search fund: learning M&A from inception to exit
This summer, I am joining Encruzado Partners, a search fund, working remotely with two successful entrepreneurs in Portugal. My role will involve identifying and selecting M&A targets in the region, building value creation theses before acquisition and supporting the full M&A process from initial screening, due diligence and completion.
This is a unique opportunity to see how ETA works in practice and to apply what I have learned on the MFin to real transactions. I am looking forward to working on deals that require both rigorous financial analysis and thoughtful strategic planning and to seeing how value is created post-acquisition.
Ignite and the next step in my ETA journey
I also joined Ignite, a entrepreneurship programme at the Cambridge Judge Entrepreneurship Centre, to refine my search fund thesis. Through Ignite, I hope to polish and stress-test my ETA investment thesis, keep building my network with other entrepreneurs and investors and raise further awareness of the ETA model within the Cambridge ecosystem.
Looking back, the MFin has been much more than a finance degree. It has been a platform to explore impact, innovation and entrepreneurship in a structured yet flexible way. From African impact ventures to UK angel investing, from medtech startups to search funds in southern Europe, each experience has helped me clarify what kind of finance professional and entrepreneur I want to become. For anyone considering the MFin, I would say: come with curiosity, be open to different paths and use the Cambridge environment to experiment. You may arrive thinking only about traditional finance roles and leave with a much broader, richer view of what a career in finance can look like.
Looking back, the MFin has been much more than a finance degree. It has been a platform to explore impact, innovation and entrepreneurship in a structured yet flexible way.
About the blog author: Andrés Mendoza
Andrés has 10 years of professional experience spanning corporate finance and strategy. His background combines management consulting, investment banking, M&A advisory and corporate operating roles. Throughout his career, he has worked for global organisations including Kearney, Amazon, Nokia, Santander and Itaú, focusing on structured debt, M&A, value creation and operational growth. He has worked across Latin America and Europe and has always been driven by a strong entrepreneurial aspiration. Andrés came to Cambridge to specialise in venture capital and private equity. These are fields that allow him to engage with the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Cambridge, the startup community and the ETA network across the UK and Europe.
He holds an MBA and is currently completing a Master of Finance at the University of Cambridge. Andrés has lived and worked in the United Kingdom, Spain, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia. Fluent in English, Spanish and Portuguese, he applies his international background to cross-border financial and strategic projects.
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