The Universities of Top VC-Backed Entrepreneurs

September 8, 2014

Pitchbook is out with their annual review of which universities are producing the most venture capital-backed entrepreneurs.  Where would you guess these entrepreneurs attended school?

On top of the 2014 list are entrepreneurs out of Stanford at $3.52 billion. In second place is Harvard at $3.24 billion.  Rounding out the top ten are the Indian Institute of Technology ($3.15 billion), MIT ($2.42 billion), UC Berkeley ($2.41 billion), University of Pennsylvania ($2.19 billion), Yale ($2.07 billion), Cornell ($1.97 billion), University of Illinois ($1.41 billion), and Brown ($1.31 billion).

Unsurprisingly, the list includes some world-renowned institutions, such as Harvard, UC Berkeley, and Stanford.  Yet perhaps more interesting, the list includes the Indian Institute of Technology in third place.

Some other international institutions with high performing alumni are Tel Aviv University ($1.25 billion), University of London ($1.07 billion), University of Waterloo in Canada ($1.01 billion), University of Toronto ($0.93 billion), Technion, headquartered in Israel ($0.80 billion), Hebrew University ($0.56 billion), McGill University out of Canada ($0.54 billion), and Queen’s University in Canada ($0.31 billion).

The list also includes some surprisingly high-ranking universities that are not typically known as hotbeds of venture capital activity.  Of the surprises are BYU ($1.16 billion), University of Colorado ($0.79 billion), Georgetown ($0.67 billion), and Washington University ($0.66 billion). One note to the study is that it excludes companies out of China, where entrepreneurial activity is nothing short of exhilarating according by many accounts.

1 Pic Switching now to entrepreneur count as opposed to the sum of dollar volume, the rankings change – some considerably.

Interesting, entrepreneurs out of Stanford top this list as well at 378.  In second place is UC Berkeley (336).  The remaining entries in the top 10 include MIT (300), Indian Institutes of Technology (264), Harvard (253), University of Pennsylvania (244), Cornell (212), University of Michigan (176), Tel Aviv University (169), and University of Texas (150).

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VC Investment Per Entrepreneur

The university getting for the most VC dollars per entrepreneur is not American.  That title goes to the University of London at $15.0 million. In second place is Yale at $13.9 million.

The remaining entries in the top 10 include University of Toronto ($13.1 million), Harvard ($12.8 million), Washington University ($12.4 million), Indian Institute of Technology ($11.9 million), BYU ($11.3 million), Duke ($10.9 million), University of Colorado ($10.8 million), and Georgetown ($10.6 million).

On the other end of this list are some surprises. Venture capital investment per entrepreneur is relatively low at MIT ($8.1 million) and UC Berkeley ($7.2 million), two of the top universities for venture capital investments.

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Overall, venture capital continues to be clustered in certain areas of the world, chief among them American hotbeds of entrepreneurial activity.  Interestingly, when looking at the data overall, just because there is a cluster of a high number of entrepreneurs receiving VC money out of a particular institution, it doesn’t necessarily mean that those entrepreneurs will get more of that money.

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