Kanwal Singh Rekhi
Managing Director, Inventus Capital Partners
Co-Founder, The Indus Entrepreneurs | San Francisco, CA (USA)
Ancestry & Birthplace:
Rawalpindi (undivided British India)
Residence:
San Francisco, CA (USA)
DREAM BIG, LIVE BIG!
He is fearless, relentless, mastermind and a great leader. He is a family man with staunch values.
My life has been an incredible journey in many ways. Starting as a refugee family from Pakistan to growing up in a middle-class family in Kanpur, I have experienced and grown in ways I’d never thought. We were kids when we moved to India at the time of partition. My father, Major Bhagat Singh Rekhi, joined the army as a soldier and my mother, Raj Kaur, was the bedrock of the family. A great lady, she managed everything when Dad was on postings.
The credit for my achievements goes to my Dad. He was the first from our family to matriculate and took the responsibility of all 13 family members on his single salary without complaining. It is from him that I learnt to be grateful and constantly hardworking. He made sure that we siblings got a proper education.
I got my start in grade 4. Dad never saw me as officer material, but eventually, he was proud of me as many of his colleagues’ children were not able to make it to IIT after school, but I could. My life changed after I started my bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering at IIT Bombay in 1963.
I had always been nerdy
I was a gawky looking kid with impaired speech and self-esteem issues, but I worked hard and overcame those obstacles. I was completely dedicated to whatever I did, even in things where I didn’t have any background. In 1967, I flew to the USA for my Masters from Michigan Technological University. After my post-graduation, I worked in different companies and got laid off three times. But I decided to not let the environment control me and kept applying for jobs. I kept educating myself and did courses in systems, software, business and law at Santa Clara University.
In December 1971, I moved from West Palm Beach, Florida, to Sunnyvale in Northern California and took up a job with Singer-Links as well as a job from Scientific Data Systems (SDS). We built massive systems using tens of thousands of gates and flip flop and hundreds of boards. It was during this time when my wife, Ann, and I finally visited India in 1973.
It had been six years I visited my homeland. Though Dad was against me marrying an American, he built an immediate rapport with her. After we got back, news came that Dad had passed away in a motor accident. It was hard on me as I could not afford to go back. Days passed, and I excelled at work, got promoted to the post of senior engineer. On the personal front, Ann and I settled down well and bought our first house in San Jose. Raj-Ann, our beautiful and talented daughter, a fundraising and special events consultant, came along in 1976 and son, Ben, American director, producer and screenwriter, in 1979. By 1975, I had a US citizenship and made sure I invited my family to the USA. Now, there are nearly 40 of us living by the bay.
By then, I was about 35 and didn’t want to work under people. Realising the business potential in me, I quit my job at Singer. IBM PC had been introduced, and I was ready to connect the plethora of computers using my skills; thus, Excelan was born in 1982. The company went public on NASDAQ in 1987 and merged with Novell in 1989. Six years later, we founded The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TiE), a non-profit support network to provide advice, contacts and funding to Indian-Americans hoping to start the business. In 1994, I became a full-time Angel Investor, and my life just went on after that. The company has invested in more than 50 startups.
I live to give
I’ve always believed in giving back to society and have contributed in whatever way I could. I think my most significant support was my family, and the will to never give up.
Because education plays a big role in your success, I believe in contributing to increase the profile of educational institutions in India and the USA. I have contributed to Michigan Tech and IIT Bombay, where the School of Information Technology was named after me. Little does it interest me, but I was felicitated with 2010 Haridas, conferred Bina Chaudhuri Award for Distinguished Service by California Institute of Integral Studies and was also awarded the Entrepreneur of the Year in 1987. Dad never saw me achieve significant milestones, but I know he is very proud of watching us from above.
