Kanwal was the first Silicon Valley Indo-American Founder & CEO to take a venture-backed company public on the NASDAQ. In the 1990s, Kanwal became a high-profile venture angel while co-founding and leading TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) to become the largest global mentoring network for Indian entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and around the world. Kanwal has co-invested and worked with John for 20 years, and they founded Inventus in 2007 to institutionalize their high-conviction early-stage approach to help Founders build category-defining companies.

​Kanwal is currently on the Boards of Dresma, Monetize360, Orbion Space Technology, and TenXer Labs. He led the investments or was on the Boards of Espresso Logic (ACQ: CA Technologies), FundsIndia (ACQ: WestBridge), GenWi (ACQ: Persistent Systems), Intellivision (ACQ: Nortek), Poshmark (IPO: NASDAQ), Sierra Atlantic (ACQ: Hitachi), StatX (ACQ: TapClicks), and actively mentored the Founders of redBus(ACQ: Naspers IBIBO).

​Kanwal earned a BSEE from IIT-Bombay and an MSEE and Honorary Doctorates in both Business and Engineering from Michigan Tech. He founded the Kanwal Rekhi Schools of Information Technology at the IIT-Bombay and Michigan Tech.