Summary
Keller Rinaudo Cliffton is the co-founder and CEO of Zipline, the world’s largest autonomous drone delivery service. A former professional rock climber and Harvard-trained molecular biologist, he pivoted an earlier robotics toy startup, Romotive, into Zipline in 2014 and has led the company through its growth from delivering blood in Rwanda to a global logistics platform valued at roughly $7.6-7.8 billion.
Career
Rinaudo Cliffton was born on February 2, 1987, and was raised largely in Phoenix, Arizona, where he completed an International Baccalaureate diploma and was recognized as a National Merit Scholar (Operation Drone — The Wred Feather). He attended Harvard University from 2005 to 2009, earning an AB in Economics and Biotechnology, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude. As an undergraduate, he worked in Harvard’s Bauer Genomics Lab building molecular computers made of DNA and RNA that could operate inside human cells, publishing the research in Nature Biotechnology and becoming one of the youngest first authors in the journal’s history; he also founded Harvard’s climbing wall (LinkedIn; World Economic Forum).
After a brief stint at Boston Consulting Group, Rinaudo Cliffton left to spend about a year and a half as a nationally ranked professional rock climber, competing in sport climbing around the world before turning to entrepreneurship (Harvard International Review). In 2011, he co-founded Romotive with childhood friends, building an iPhone-controlled robotic toy called Romo; the company received early Kickstarter orders and seed funding from Sequoia Capital, but struggled to keep customers engaged with the product long-term.
In January 2014, Rinaudo Cliffton shut down Romotive and redirected the team toward a more ambitious goal: building autonomous aircraft to deliver medical supplies to places conventional logistics could not easily reach. He co-founded Zipline in Half Moon Bay, California, in March 2014 alongside Keenan Wyrobek, Ryan Oksenhorn, and William Hetzler. As CEO, he led Zipline’s launch of the world’s first national drone delivery service in Rwanda in October 2016, its expansion into Ghana, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, and Japan, and its move into U.S. retail and food delivery through partnerships with Walmart and Chipotle. Zipline reached a valuation of roughly $7.6-7.8 billion in early 2026 after surpassing two million commercial deliveries.
Rinaudo Cliffton has spoken at TED on both Romo and Zipline’s medical drone work, and has been profiled by the World Economic Forum for using autonomous technology to expand access to healthcare in places with limited transportation infrastructure (TED; World Economic Forum).
Source Notes
This profile draws on Rinaudo Cliffton’s LinkedIn profile, a Harvard International Review interview, his TED speaker biography, a World Economic Forum profile, the Zipline Wikipedia article, and a student newspaper profile containing specific early-life biographical details. His exact title and public biography should be re-verified against Zipline’s latest materials as the company continues to grow.