Kittu Kolluri Named 2024 Class Day Speaker for Columbia Engineering’s Graduate Student Class Day

A serial entrepreneur, CEO, senior operating executive and venture capitalist with more than three decades of experience, Kolluri founded Neotribe Ventures in 2017, a venture capital firm that backs entrepreneurs focused on breakthrough technologies. Kolluri is a former Columbia Engineering parent two times over and has served on the Board of Visitors.

“It’s my honor to be chosen to speak to the graduate students of Columbia Engineering,” said Kolluri. “These students have worked hard to pursue postgraduate degrees that will help them make a real impact in the world in areas where innovation is sorely needed. As someone who has always supported new endeavors with transformative potential, I’ve seen how great ideas can come to life with the right guidance and support. I’m eager to see the Class of 2024 become the next generation of fearless and committed innovators.”

Kolluri began his career as a software engineer at Silicon Graphics, and later co-founded his first startup, Healtheon/WebMD, which went public in 1999. He served as the founding CEO of Neoteris and ran the enterprise security and routing business as EVP/GM at Juniper Networks before becoming a General Partner at NEA in 2006. As an investor, Kolluri has been actively involved with more than 4 dozen successful companies, including Aruba Networks, Bloom Energy, The Climate Corporation, Box, Robinhood, Metromile, Velocloud, Cyence, ClearMotion, MindTickle, EnergyVault, BillionToOne, Empirico, and Heliogen.

“Kittu Kolluri has given invaluable guidance and support to Columbia Engineering over the years and we are fortunate to have him share his wisdom, gained over a long and successful career, with our graduate students,” said Dean of Columbia Engineering Shih-Fu Chang. “His commitment to making a positive impact on society is 100% aligned with our Engineering for Humanity vision and will inspire students to use their knowledge to think more deeply and creatively about the future.”

Kolluri was named one of the Top 100 Venture Capitalists by New York Times/CBInsights in 2016 and is recognized as one of the best early stage investors in the industry. Author Michael Lewis profiled Kolluri in his book The New New Thing (1999). He earned a B.Tech. (M.E.) from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India, and an MS in operations research from SUNY, Buffalo, NY.