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Andrew McLean

San Francisco, Investment Team

Andrew is a Vice President based in San Francisco, where he’s helping build Creandum’s US presence. He invests across AI infrastructure, applied AI in complex industries, and frontier technologies where software meets science.

I spent much of college thinking about questions without clear answers. My first job taught me that sometimes you have to act without them.

I grew up in the Bay Area, where entrepreneurship was never far away, but my interests first took me elsewhere. At Harvard, I studied philosophy, with a particular affection for Dostoevsky and Wittgenstein. I’m drawn to questions about human nature, how we know things, and why people believe what they do. What stuck with me was a habit of questioning assumptions and getting to the core of what matters.

After graduating, I joined Rentana, an AI startup doing dynamic pricing for apartment owners, as its first employee. It was my introduction to startups, and I loved it: the ambition, the scrappiness, and having a hand in nearly everything. I came away with a deep respect for the creativity, persistence, and occasional irrationality it takes to turn an idea into a company.

From there, I moved into investing at ARTIS Ventures, backing frontier technology, healthcare, and life science companies. That’s where what I’d loved about philosophy and operating came together. Venture is a business of people, ideas, and conviction, and my favorite moment is when a founder explains something they believe that almost no one else does yet.

I joined Creandum in 2026 to help a team I admire build something new in the Bay Area, where I grew up. The founders I most want to back have an independent view of the world and the nerve and ambition to act on it before the answers are clear.

When I’m not working, I’m happiest on a long run or ride in Marin, deep in a book, or hosting a dinner that goes on longer than planned. I’m an enthusiastic, occasionally overambitious cook, and always up for a conversation about James Joyce or James Turrell, and competitive in anything with a scoreboard.