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Andrew Sheffield
VC Principal @ Playfair
Andrew Sheffield is a VC Principal at Playfair Capital, a London-based venture capital firm investing at the pre-seed stage.14 He joined Playfair in August 2021 as a VC Analyst and was promoted to VC Associate in September 2022, before becoming a Principal.1
Andrew has a diverse background, including:
- Professional poker player from 2017 to 20201
- Business Development Executive at Neudata from 2020 to 20211
- Various internships in finance, including roles at Deutsche Bank, State Street, and Santander UK1
He holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics (International) with a First Class degree from the University of Leeds.1 Andrew also studied abroad at Simon Fraser University in 2017-2018.1
At Playfair, Andrew is involved in pre-seed investments across various sectors, including Future of Work, ClimateTech/CleanTech, and others.4 He also serves as a Board Observer for portfolio companies such as Kuai Commerce and Spotted Zebra.1
Andrew is active on social media, maintaining a presence on LinkedIn and Twitter (@AndrewSheff1).2 He occasionally shares insights about venture capital and Playfair's investment approach, such as his recent "reverse pitch" presentation at Pitchflix.3
Highlights
That’s a wrap on the most incredible trip to Shanghai 🇨🇳
Some other learnings from my trip:
🌇 Again, the scale. This time it was a beauty conference alongside the YASO team. A two day conference, visited by 500,000 people. Whilst I couldn’t get a photo of this (because it was hosted across 30 airport hangers), this is a conference with the same amount of people as Edinburgh.
💸 Consumer behaviour - payments. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING(!) is paid for using one of two apps - WeChat or Alipay. Even a street vendor like the one in the photo selling delicious steamed buns for 20p… No cash allowed!
📹 Consumer behaviour - social commerce! At the conference, most stalls were also live-streaming to huge audiences where they were selling products directly to consumers.
🥭 After spotting a store selling durian (the smelly, but delicious, fruit) Effie Chen pulled up a livestream with 26,000 viewers (!!!) all watching and buying durian products. The average home-attendance of my beloved Blackpool FC is about 10,000. We have a long way to go to compete with an audience size of the stink-fruit.
I finally get it. I now understand why YASO are signing a new brand every month to access the largest consumer market in the world. I’ve never been more bullish about the size of the opportunity they and their clients face and I feel lucky to be on the journey with them.
Thank you to team YASO for being such gracious hosts and showing me this city.
Let’s go YASO ✌🏻🚀
Adam Knight James Campbell 甘吉 Jonny Plein Sohail Shaikh Miriam Bray
I wish I'd known about Jumpstart when I started my career in tech
I definitely would have joined 🚀
Spending time with such an ambitious community gives me so much energy! Thank you Emilie Lauga and Matthew Sarre for the invite.
It was such a privilege to share a panel with some of the industry's finest: Fred Destin Ella Goldner (Levy) and Richard Serunjogi
If you're young and ambitious to make an impact in your work - I'd recommend reaching out to the team at Jumpstart!
