# Kanu Gulati

> Kanu Gulati is a Partner at Khosla Ventures investing in enterprise AI, robotics, and autonomous systems. With a PhD in electrical engineering, over a decade as a research scientist at Intel and Cadence, and experience as a founding engineer at multiple acquired startups, she bridged from deep tech to venture capital through a cold email that landed her an internship at Khosla Ventures. An NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship recipient with 35+ peer-reviewed publications, three co-authored books, and an Erdős number of 3, she now leads investments in companies like Waabi, Genesis AI, and PolyAI.

- **Role:** Partner at Khosla Ventures
- **Organizations:** Khosla Ventures, PolyAI (Board Director), Harvard Business School, Harvard Innovation Labs, Texas A&M University, University of Delhi
- **From:** India
- **Nationality:** Indian-American
- **Education:** MBA, Harvard Business School, PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University, MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University, Bachelor's in Computer Engineering, University of Delhi
- **Known for:** Partner at Khosla Ventures, one of Silicon Valley's premier venture capital firms, NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship recipient for hardware acceleration research, Co-authored three books on hardware acceleration and EDA algorithms

## Career timeline

- **2015-Present** — Partner at Khosla Ventures
- **2013-2015** — MBA at Harvard Business School, interned at Khosla Ventures via cold email
- **2013-2015** — Co-President of Venture Capital and Private Equity Conference at Harvard Business School
- **~2010-2013** — Research Scientist at Intel (CAD lab, helped Intel Capital with due diligence)
- **~2000s-2010s** — Research Scientist at Cadence Design Systems
- **~2000s** — Founding/Early Engineer at Heavy.ai (formerly OmniSci, hardware-accelerated analytics)
- **~2000s** — Founding/Early Engineer at Spyglass (predictive analytics for design, acquired by Synopsys)
- **~2000s** — Founding/Early Engineer at Nascentric (fast-circuit simulation, acquired by Cadence)
- **~2006-2010** — NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship recipient during PhD studies

## Achievements

- Partner at Khosla Ventures, one of Silicon Valley's premier venture capital firms
- NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship recipient for hardware acceleration research
- Co-authored three books on hardware acceleration and EDA algorithms
- 35+ peer-reviewed publications with 650+ citations
- Holder of one U.S. patent
- Erdős number of 3 (measure of collaborative distance in mathematics/computer science)
- Successfully transitioned from engineer to founder to venture capitalist
- Co-President of Harvard Business School's annual Venture Capital and Private Equity Conference
- Led investments in multiple unicorns including Waabi ($200M Series B) and Genesis AI ($105M seed)
- Board Director at PolyAI
- Contributing author at TechCrunch on AI and venture capital topics
- Over 10 years of operating experience at Intel and Cadence
- Three successful startup exits as founding/early engineer

## Latest updates

- **2025-07** — Khosla Ventures co-led Genesis AI's $105M seed round for building foundation models for robotics
- **2025-06** — Appeared on TechCrunch Equity podcast discussing what VCs want from AI startups in the current funding environment
- **2024** — Portfolio company PolyAI raised $50M Series C
- **2024** — Portfolio company Waabi raised $200M Series B for autonomous trucking

## Links

- Website: https://www.khoslaventures.com/team/kanu-gulati
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanugulati
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/kanugulati
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kanugulati

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/kanu-gulati
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-04