No education is required to be an entrepreneur. But when it involves securing financing, graduating from a prestigious university definitely seems helpful.
In particular, founders with degrees from Stanford University, Harvard University AND WITH consistently perform higher in attracting capital for their startups, review Crunch Base data shows. The last 12 months were no exception, with these three universities once again taking the top three spots in our rating of the best foundation-funded schools for founders.
But these weren’t the only schools that boasted good results in terms of graduating entrepreneurs with the support of investors. By Crunchbase datawe ranked 32 schools in the US that graduated with a large number of founders who raised rounds in the last 12 months or so. 1
As you possibly can see, this is a diverse university offering, covering all regions of the country and including each public and private schools. The student’s body size also varies greatly, ranging from small Caltechwith fewer than 2,500 students, flagship schools akin to University of Michigan AND University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaigneach of which has over 50,000 students.
Meanwhile, among public universities UC Berkeley he was once again the undisputed leader. The only public schools that made the top 10 were Berkeley and the University of Michigan. Other public schools followed University of California AND University of Texas at Austin.
Other details of the data crisis
Some business schools stand out: Some universities may owe their high rankings largely to business school graduates. This applies in particular Harvard Business School, Stanford College of Business AND Penn‘S Wharton School.
Below, we have rounded up the seven best business schools for graduate founders funded in the past 12 months.
No major changes in the rankings: We have been conducting surveys among founders for several years. And while there are some fluctuations in the rankings from 12 months to 12 months, they’re normally not something we might consider particularly dramatic. The top 4 in particular look quite good.
This time our data set is barely different from last 12 months’s study. Last time we looked at firms that had raised at least $1 million thus far. This time, we looked at firms that raised rounds of $100,000 or more in the past 12 months, with the intention of taking a closer look at founders graduating from pre-seed or accelerator funding. Even with a wider lens, the results didn’t change significantly.
Co-funded founders raised $109 billion: Overall, firms with founders from the schools we ranked have raised a total of $109 billion since May of last 12 months, in line with Crunchbase data. The largest share got here from firms founded by Stanford graduates, which earned $14.2 billion, followed by firms founded by Harvard graduates, which earned $12.3 billion.
Of the firms founded at Stanford University, the largest round got here AI overkill, which raised $1.3 billion in June. Among the firms founded by Harvard graduates, Raise Bio raised the largest round, closing a $401 million Series D nearly a 12 months ago.