Ever since the launch of Facebook, the image of the tech entrepreneur has shifted from Steve Jobs in his garage to Mark Zuckerberg sitting in his dorm room. That was solidified in the Social Network, even if that movie didn’t make him look very good.
Now top venture capital firms are launching funds aimed exclusively at college kids, and sending recruits to demo days to try to find the best young talent.
So where should these firms be going, and where should they be putting their dollars? A new PitchBook report sheds some light on the answer, showing which colleges and universities have produced the most entrepreneurs, alumni who have raised the most venture capital and even the most unicorns.
(Does it surprise you that Stanford leads in every one of those categories? Probably not.)
Top schools for undergraduate entrepreneurs
Stanford comes out on top, with 561 entrepreneurs, who have founded 472 and raised $5.9 billion collectively, which is by far the most money of any school on this list.
It’s most famous alumni is probably Evan Speigel, the founder and CEO of Snapchat, which has raised $1.2 billion on its own.
It is followed by U.C. Berkely with 536 entrepreneurs, who have founded 468 and raised $4.1 billion collectively. Despite have nearing the same number of entrepreneurs and companies, its alumni have raised $1.8 billion less. I’d say it had to do with location, but these two schools are not very far apart from each other.
That could be because Berkely’s most well funded startup is Campaign Monitor, which has $250 million, and its most famous is Udemy, which has raised $113million.
Third and fourth are a couple of Boston schools: MIT with 435 entrepreneurs, who have founded 369 and raised $4.6 billion collectively, followed by Harvard with 404 entrepreneurs, who have founded 359 and raised just under $5 billion collectively.
MIT’s top funded companies include Oscar Health, which has raised $327.5 million, and Munchery, which has raised $125 million. Harvard’s top companies include Zenefits, which raised $583.6 million and Blue Apron, which raised $193 million.
Coming in fifth is University of Pennsylvania, with 393 entrepreneurs, who have founded 351 and raised a relatively low $3 billion collectively.
Alumni include Flatiron Health, which raised $139.4 million and Anki, which has raised $105 million.
Top schools for women
When looking at the stats for women entrepreneurs, all I can say is: wow, these numbers are shockingly low.
Take a look at the above stats, then compare them with these: the same five schools make up the list for undergraduate women, and not one of them had more than 70 entrepreneurs.
Stanford, again, came out on top. It’s 70 female undergrad entrepreneurs only founded 67 companies, and raised $423 million. And that was, by far, the best.
University of Pennsylvania saw 62 entrepreneurs, 59 companies and a mere $249 million raised.
UC Berkely, again, had the lowest amount raised: 57 entrepreneurs, 56 companies and only $235 million raised.
Harvard and MIT rounded out the top five; Harvard had 48 entrepreneurs who founded 48 companies (a lot of lone wolves over there I guess) and $528 million raised. MIT had 42 entrepreneurs, 41 companies and $251 million raised.
Come on, we can do better!
Top unicorns
When looking at the schools with the biggest unicorns, three of the five were the same as the top undergrad schools.
Stanford has produced 10 unicorns, and its most famous alumni is, as I said earlier, is Snapchat, which has become one of the most well funded private companies out there right now. It is now valued at $16 billion.
Stanford’s other big unicorn is Palantir, which is valued at $20 billion.
Harvard has produced nine of them, including, of course, Facebook. As a publicly traded company, Facebook now has a market cap of $264 billion.
Other unicorns to come out of Harvard include Cloudera, which is valued at $5 billion, and Zenefits, which is valued at $4.5 billion.
UC Berkely has six unicorns to its name, and also has claims to Cloudera. Its others include Calient Technologies and Machine Zone, which is valued at $6 billion.
Cornell also has six unicorns, included Lyft, which is valued at $2.5 billion; Moderna, which is valued at $3 billion; and Wayfair, which is a public company with a $3 billion market cap.
Rounding out the top 5 is University of Michigan, which has six unicorns including Groupon, a public company with a $2.39 billion market cap; Medallia, which is valued at $1 billion; and Twilio, which is valued at $1.1 billion.
(Image source: thecrimson.com)
