Kanwal is a well-known and respected entrepreneur and venture investor in both Silicon Valley and India. He has been the CEO of three venture-backed companies, was the first Indo-American to take a venture-backed company public on the NASDAQ, co-founded and built the largest global network of Indian entrepreneurs, and co-founded Inventus to devote his full energy and experience to establish a leading US-India venture franchise. Entrepreneur & Industry Executive - Kanwal came to the United States from India for graduate studies, became a U.S. citizen, and advanced through the engineering ranks in a number of companies. In 1982 he co-founded Excelan in Silicon Valley to commercialize ethernet and TCP/IP - standards which became the basis of the Internet. In 1987 he took Excelan public and became the first Indo-American Founder & CEO to list a venture-backed company on the NASDAQ. Excelan later merged with Novell, where Kanwal served as EVP, CTO and a Board Director for five years, established Novell's operations in India, grew the company into the second largest software vendor in the world and returned 100X to his venture investors. Later, Kanwal was CEO of Ensim and also CEO of Cybermedia, both companies in which he was initially a lead venture investor and board member. Kanwal negotiated Cybermedia's successful acquisition by Network Associates. Venture Investor - Since leaving Novell in 1994, Kanwal has been a full time venture investor, investing his own capital in the first rounds of more than 50 startups of which he led the initial financing and was a member of the board of directors for 23 companies. His venture financings have resulted in 21 exits including 6 IPOs to date. Among his successes are Nextag, Exodus Communications, Cybermedia, Versata, Ambit, Zeitnet, Placeware, HealthAtoZ, Kaboodle, and Inventus Fund I's Sierra Atlantic. Also active in Indian public policy related to venture, Kanwal advised India government policy makers in reforming venture regulations. This encouraged fund formation in India starting in 2000, and Kanwal was the founding limited partner behind Infinity Capital-India a successful early-stage India venture fund. At Inventus, Kanwal was a director of Sierra Atlantic and actively involved in structuring its sale to Hitachi last year. He is currently a director at GenWi, Wealth India and Salorix, and board observer at GoshPosh. India Entrepreneurial leader - Kanwal is a well-known figure in the global Indian community and a widely recognized authority on entrepreneurship. He co-founded The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TiE) to promote Indian entrepreneurship and was TiE President through the late 90's presiding over its growth into a global organization with over 10,000 members who have been behind Silicon Valley and India start-ups including Google, Exodus, Hotmail, Juniper, Lightera, IndiaBulls and hundreds more. Kanwal is currently a trustee on the global board of TiE. He also successfully advised the Indian Prime Minister and his government on their aggressive deregulation of telecom, leading to the explosive growth of mobile telephony in India, and laying the foundation for the country's impressive IT expansion. With Inventus, Kanwal works closely with entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and India, as he has since 1995, to apply his full time and energy helping them accomplish great results.

Education

Kanwal earned a BSEE from IIT-Bombay and a MSEE and Honorary Doctorates in both Business and Engineering from Michigan Tech. Kanwal is a board member on the IIT Bombay Heritage Fund (IITBHF), and also founded the Kanwal Rekhi Schools of Information Technology at both IIT-Bombay and Michigan Tech.