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October 20, 2021

QED Investors hires Alexandra Piedrahita to grow U.K. presence

QED Investors, a leading global venture capital firm focused on investing in disruptive financial services companies, today announced it has hired Alexandra (Ale) Piedrahita.

Prior to joining QED, Piedrahita was a senior associate with Los Angeles-based venture firm March Capital, an early growth, B2B fund where she focused on fintech strategy, with a particular emphasis on infrastructure.

“Across the U.K. we are seeing significant growth in deal flow from pre-seed to growth-stage companies,” said QED Investors Co-Founder and Managing Partner Nigel Morris. “As we expand, we are delighted to have Ale on board. She brings a wealth of talent, energy and a truly global outlook and she will prove invaluable in helping us drive our business forward.

“Similar to the roaring fintech tailwinds throughout the U.K., QED is seeing a similar increase in the total value of investments into companies across continental Europe, driven by consumer fintech adoption and online banking penetration. Ale will play a pivotal role in helping QED embrace these burgeoning opportunities.”

Piedrahita received her MBA from London Business School, which she pursued to transition into fintech venture capital. During her MBA, she also spent six months at Balderton Capital, a European Series A venture fund.

Prior to attending LBS, she spent three years in the private equity industry at Ares Management, based in New York. At Ares, she worked on their corporate strategy and private debt teams. She received her BS from Georgetown University, where she majored in political economy.

“I am thrilled to be joining the QED team,” said Piedrahita. “Working with Yusuf Özdalga in the London office, I look forward to expanding QED's reach within the U.K. and Europe and continuing to support our fantastic portfolio companies. QED brings differentiated and truly value-add capital to the early stage fintech ecosystem, and I am proud to be a part of the team.”

Outside of work, Piedrahita is passionate about the outdoors, and she enjoys surfing, skiing and hiking. She loves Latin food and music, owed partly to her Colombian and Brazilian backgrounds. She grew up between London and Spain and is excited to return to Europe with QED.

Founded in 2007, QED Investors has invested in more than 150 companies, including 21 unicorns, and has more than $3.8 billion under management. Last month, QED announced it had closed a substantially oversubscribed $1.05 billion fund, including $550 million in QED Fund VII for early stage investments and $500 million in a new Growth Fund.

QED Investors’ U.K. portfolio includes ClearScore, Wagestream, Capitalise, Rest Less and Weavr. Its European investments include Klarna in Sweden, Wayflyer in Dublin and Payhawk in Bulgaria.

Ashley Marshall
Director, PR and Communications
QED Investors
(518) 577-9984

QED Investors, a leading global venture capital firm focused on investing in disruptive financial services companies, today announced it has hired Alexandra (Ale) Piedrahita.

Prior to joining QED, Piedrahita was a senior associate with Los Angeles-based venture firm March Capital, an early growth, B2B fund where she focused on fintech strategy, with a particular emphasis on infrastructure.

“Across the U.K. we are seeing significant growth in deal flow from pre-seed to growth-stage companies,” said QED Investors Co-Founder and Managing Partner Nigel Morris. “As we expand, we are delighted to have Ale on board. She brings a wealth of talent, energy and a truly global outlook and she will prove invaluable in helping us drive our business forward.

“Similar to the roaring fintech tailwinds throughout the U.K., QED is seeing a similar increase in the total value of investments into companies across continental Europe, driven by consumer fintech adoption and online banking penetration. Ale will play a pivotal role in helping QED embrace these burgeoning opportunities.”

Piedrahita received her MBA from London Business School, which she pursued to transition into fintech venture capital. During her MBA, she also spent six months at Balderton Capital, a European Series A venture fund.

Prior to attending LBS, she spent three years in the private equity industry at Ares Management, based in New York. At Ares, she worked on their corporate strategy and private debt teams. She received her BS from Georgetown University, where she majored in political economy.

“I am thrilled to be joining the QED team,” said Piedrahita. “Working with Yusuf Özdalga in the London office, I look forward to expanding QED's reach within the U.K. and Europe and continuing to support our fantastic portfolio companies. QED brings differentiated and truly value-add capital to the early stage fintech ecosystem, and I am proud to be a part of the team.”

Outside of work, Piedrahita is passionate about the outdoors, and she enjoys surfing, skiing and hiking. She loves Latin food and music, owed partly to her Colombian and Brazilian backgrounds. She grew up between London and Spain and is excited to return to Europe with QED.

Founded in 2007, QED Investors has invested in more than 150 companies, including 21 unicorns, and has more than $3.8 billion under management. Last month, QED announced it had closed a substantially oversubscribed $1.05 billion fund, including $550 million in QED Fund VII for early stage investments and $500 million in a new Growth Fund.

QED Investors’ U.K. portfolio includes ClearScore, Wagestream, Capitalise, Rest Less and Weavr. Its European investments include Klarna in Sweden, Wayflyer in Dublin and Payhawk in Bulgaria.

Ashley Marshall
Director, PR and Communications
QED Investors
(518) 577-9984

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01

Settlement Collapse

Value transfer moves from days - corresponding banking, T+1 securities - to seconds. Working capital tied up in float is released.

02

Cost Collapse

Marginal transaction cost approaches zero: fractions of a cent, versus 1-6% on card and corresponding rails.

03

Programmability

Money becomes an object that carries logic - escrow, splits, rebates, compliance - executed by code, not back offices.

Pure infrastructure with no revenue accrual

Layer-1 chains and general-purpose middleware — outside our circle of competence and typically outside our stage.

Speculative asset creation

NFT platforms, memecoins, prediction markets styled as products — mapping to none of the five functions; structurally uninvestable for us.

Three structural truths cut across all five functions.

(a)

Regulated-first wins

The 2020/21 cycle proved permissionless purity does not survive contact with real financial regulation. GENIUS, MiCA, CLARITY and the UK/Singapore regimes are producing founders who start from “how do we get licensed” and build backwards — precisely the founder profile QED has always preferred.
(b)

Incumbents upgraded, not disintermediated

JPMorgan, Citi, Bank of America and Wells Fargo are jointly building a tokenized-deposit network; Visa launched a stablecoin platform in July 2026; 140+ businesses signed an open stablecoin standard. Banks migrate — and new-generation infrastructure companies own the picks and shovels of that migration.
(c)

Emerging markets feel it first

Every function improves most where the fiat experience is worst: cross-border payments, dollar access, investment product availability, working-capital finance. Those are exactly the geographies where QED has fintech ventures’ deepest footprint. Our geographic distribution is not incidental to the tokenization thesis — it is the thesis.

Trade & working-capital finance

Finkargo( LatAm import finance) and OatFi(B2B working-capital infrastructure) sit directly on flows whose logical settlement layer is stablecoin.

Collateralized digital-asset lending

Tokenized Treasuries, equities and stablecoin holdings as instant, programmable collateral.

On-chain private credt

Maple, Centrifuge and emerging institutional protocols - credit funds migrating to programmable rails.

Why QED is advanced

Credit is QED's craft: distinguishing lending businesses from fintechs pretending to be one, charge-offs earned from charge-offs deferred. On-chain credit is a straight-line extension, not a stretch.