Keller Rinaudo Cliffton

Rinaudo is a graduate of Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private research university in Massachusetts, established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature in 1636 and named in 1639 for early benefactor John Harvard. Its principal campuses are in Cambridge and the Allston and Longwood neighborhoods of Boston. It includes Harvard College, graduate and professional schools, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Two governing boards share oversight. Alan M. Garber was president as of October 2026, and the endowment stood at $56.9 billion at the end of fiscal 2025.Open the full entry. There he worked on computers built from RNA and DNA that operate inside human cells; on May 21, 2007, Nature Biotechnology published online his first-authored paper “A universal RNAi-based logic evaluator that operates in mammalian cells,” listing his affiliation as the FAS Center for Systems Biology at Harvard University, with co-authors including Ron Weiss and Yaakov Benenson.⁠[1][2]

Before Zipline he worked as a software engineer focused on robotics and autonomous systems and was a nationally ranked professional rock climber. Recalling his schooling in a 2026 interview, he said, “I learned way more working, making seven bucks an hour working in a restaurant.”⁠[3][4]

In a 2026 interview he said he was 23 when the company started and that the team’s first product was home robotics, having “raised this small seed round and then we had raised a series A on this idea of building robots for the home,” before pivoting to automated logistics. Zipline was founded in 2014 with him as chief executive; he has said the founders’ “backgrounds were in automation, robotics, and software.”⁠[4][5][6]

In 2016 Zipline partnered with the Government of Rwanda and made its first delivery to a hospital there, serving 21 hospitals in the first year; in March 2023 he said the Rwandan network had grown to about 400 hospitals and health facilities. Recalling the start of operations in 2026, he said, “And the launch was a complete disaster.” He also said his co-founder Ryan spent months on end in Rwanda.⁠[6][5][4]

On November 25, 2016, Andreessen HorowitzAndreessen HorowitzAndreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. It invests from the seed stage through the growth stage and provides operational support to its portfolio companies.Open the full entry (a16z) published the podcast episode “a16z Podcast: Drones for Delivery in Healthcare” on its website, featuring Rinaudo, then CEO and co-founder of Zipline, and John Menna, vice president of healthcare strategy at UPS, in conversation with a16z’s Chris DixonChris DixonChris Dixon is a programmer, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist, and the founder and managing partner of a16z crypto. He co-founded SiteAdvisor and Hunch, helped create Founder Collective, and later joined Andreessen Horowitz, investing in technology companies such as Coinbase. He is also the author of Read Write Own and has long written about blockchains, network ownership, the open internet, and the combination of AI and crypto.Open the full entry; it was recorded at the a16z Summit. The episode was uploaded to the a16z YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry channel on January 1, 2019.⁠[7][8]

The episode covered Zipline’s use of drones to deliver blood and vaccines to patients and hospitals in Rwanda, how drones bypass poor roads, their economics compared with motorcycle delivery, regulation and local reactions, “light and fast” logistics with smaller, centrally managed inventory, and the relationship between drone delivery and personalized medicine. The show notes quote Rinaudo: “If we have instant delivery for our burgers, we should have it for our medicine.”⁠[7]

On August 25, 2017, a16z published the podcast episode “a16z Podcast: Society Under Construction — Modernizing Infrastructure” on its website, featuring Rinaudo, then CEO of Zipline, former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx and Neighborly CEO Jase Wilson, with a16z’s Matthew Colford. The episode discussed what “infrastructure” means in an age of rapidly changing technology such as autonomous vehicles and drones, how to modernize inherited 19th-century structures and build new ones, and democratizing and crowdsourcing urban planning and public projects. It was uploaded to the a16z YouTube channel on January 1, 2019, as “a16z Podcast | A Society Under Construction - Modernizing Infrastructure.”⁠[9][10]

Zipline’s partnership with WalmartWalmartWalmart is an American retailer founded by Sam Walton in 1962, with businesses spanning physical retail, membership warehouse clubs, e-commerce and related services. Its businesses include Walmart and Sam’s Club, and it has expanded into other markets through international investments; its shares trade on Nasdaq under the ticker WMT.Open the full entry began in 2021, and the two operate a distribution center in Bentonville; in March 2023 he called Walmart “one of our biggest customers in the U.S.” Zipline received the U.S. Secretary of State’s 2021 Award for Corporate Excellence.⁠[5][3]

On a Fortune podcast in March 2023 he said, “We're doing about a million flights this year,” that the company would make twice as many deliveries that year as in the previous seven years combined, and that it was close to 40 million commercial autonomous miles.⁠[5]

In a First Round podcast in March 2026 he said the next-generation home delivery system Platform 2 had launched at the beginning of the previous year; Zipline then served about 5,000 hospitals and health facilities worldwide and had flown 135 million commercial autonomous miles, with U.S. partners including Cleveland Clinic, Memorial Hermann, OhioHealth, Michigan Medicine and Walmart.⁠[4]

On July 14, 2026, Zipline said it had completed more than 2.5 million commercial deliveries, one million of them in the previous year, and named former TeslaTeslaTesla is an American electric vehicle and energy company whose businesses span automobiles, solar energy, and battery energy storage. Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, its shares are listed on Nasdaq under the ticker TSLA.Open the full entry executive Sendil Palani as chief financial officer; that month it began a home healthcare delivery service with Cleveland Clinic in Beachwood.⁠[11]

On November 5, 2026, Zipline announced it had raised $1.5 billion led by ParadigmParadigmParadigm is a technology investment firm founded in 2018 by Matt Huang and Fred Ehrsam, investing in crypto assets, artificial intelligence, robotics, and other emerging technologies at stages extending from initial funding to public markets. The firm also conducts protocol research, open-source software development, and company incubation.Open the full entry, WCM Investment Management and Layer Global at a $21.5 billion post-money valuation to build a nationwide drone delivery network; the company said it had flown 150 million commercial autonomous miles.⁠[12]

Zipline: Official website: https://www.zipline.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[13]