Best Business Schools For VC-Backed Startups

Stanford GSB students in the school’s famous Startup Garage course

RIDING THE SIDE GIG ‘HYPE WAVE’

During the past 10 years, MBA programs from around the world have produced an impressive amount of highly valuable ventures, largely software companies. PitchBook sliced the data into industry-specific areas for the top 20 schools in terms of company count and software had the highest percentage for every single school. Ranging from 34.6% at Dartmouth’s Tuck School to 55.6% at Tel Aviv University, software was the highest represented industry among the schools producing the most companies back by VCs.

PitchBook’s Black attributes this to the longevity of Silicon Valley’s influence. And the San Francisco Bay Area influence has spread from schools located on the United States’ west coast outwardly to universities dotting the rest of country and world,  “I think there has been a decided move after seeing some of the west coast schools capitalize on an entrepreneurial model within the university,” Black says, noting the amount of schools creating incubators, increasing entrepreneurial-focused grant funding, and universities using intellectual property rights as additional means of revenue. “I think that’s very attractive to universities — especially larger public ones.”

As for the decade long uptick in entrepreneurial interest among universities, Black says it’s a sign of the times. “It’s riding the hype wave of everyone having that side gig or trying to figure out how to do their own startups,” he says. “A lot more people are entrepreneurial-minded these days.”

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