Our Team
Punit Chiniwalla, Ph.D.
Associate
Dr. Chiniwalla joined Panorama Capital in 2008 as an Associate and Kauffman Fellow focusing on technology investments. Most recently, Punit led the technology team of the Frankel Commercialization Fund, a seed fund that makes early investments in promising university technologies. In this role, he managed all activities for his 14-member team, and successfully sourced and led the fund's first deal, Arbor Photonics, and was an observer of the newly formed company's board. Punit also worked with an early-stage firm, RPM Ventures, where he led due diligence for prospective deals and developed investment theses in the areas of biofuels, demand response, and high energy laser systems.
Prior to business school, Punit worked at IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center in New York where he worked on a number of high-profile projects, including materials integration efforts across three continents for a waveguide-based server interconnect system. Punit's technical experience includes more than nine years of research and development in the areas of advanced materials, thin film semiconductor and nanotechnology processing, and optoelectronic packaging.
Punit holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. Most recently, Punit earned his MBA from the University of Michigan where he was a Frankel Fellow and Mondry Scholar.