PitchBook’s 2025 Top Universities, Ranked By Number Of MBA Startup Founders

Harvard is tops with 1,906 alumni founders; Stanford leads in funding at $115.1B

PITCHBOOK’S BEST UNIVERSITIES FOR FEMALE FOUNDERS

PitchBook compiles its annual list by tallying the number of alumni from each school who have founded capital-backed companies. This year, it based its analysis of more than 173,000 VC-backed founders.

PitchBook 2025: Female Founders (MBA)

Rank
University
Founder Count
Company Count
Capital Raised
Change vs. 2024
1 Harvard University 384 366 $8.2B
2 Stanford University 244 231 $12.9B
3 University of Pennsylvania 171 163 $3.2B
T4 Northwestern University 143 139 $3.2B
T4 Columbia University 143 140 $3.2B ⬆ +1
6 INSEAD 135 128 $1.2B
7 MIT 125 123 $2.7B
8 University of Chicago 102 101 $2.2B
9 London Business School 82 78 $780M ⬆ +1
10 UC Berkeley 74 73 $3.4B ⬇ –1
11 New York University 66 65 $861M
12 UCLA 49 47 $999M
13 University of Oxford 42 40 $398M
14 Cornell University 34 34 $512M
15 Duke University 32 31 $265M ⬇ –1
T16 Tel Aviv University 31 31 $725M ⬆ +1
T16 Yale University 31 31 $376M ⬇ –2
T16 HEC Paris 31 31 $531M ⬆ +5
19 Arizona State University, Tempe 30 30 $341M ⬆ +1
T20 USC 28 28 $358M ⬇ –2
T20 ESADE 28 28 $119M ⬆ +3
22 University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 25 25 $471M ⬇ –4
23 IE University 24 24 $147M ⬇ –2
24 Georgetown University 19 18 $272M
25 Babson College 18 18 $74M ⬆ +3

Female Founders (Graduate)

Rank
University
Founder Count
Company Count
Capital Raised
Change vs. 2024
1 Harvard University 684 621 $16.1B
2 Stanford University 616 524 $22.9B
3 MIT 360 321 $9.3B
4 Columbia University 333 311 $7.2B
5 UC Berkeley 272 249 $10.3B
6 University of Pennsylvania 251 225 $5.3B
T7 University of Cambridge 220 204 $5.3B ⬆ +1
T7 Northwestern University 220 207 $7.4B
9 University of Oxford 207 189 $2.4B
10 New York University 197 191 $2.2B
11 University of Chicago 148 139 $3.9B
12 INSEAD 136 129 $1.2B
13 London School of Economics 129 126 $1.8B ⬆ +1
14 UCLA 123 109 $3.3B ⬇ –1
15 Cornell University 121 115 $3.2B
16 HEC Paris 119 114 $1.4B
17 Johns Hopkins University 113 103 $2.7B
18 University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 98 91 $2.5B ⬇ –1
19 Imperial College London 95 89 $902M ⬆ +4
20 London Business School 94 90 $866M ⬆ +1
21 Yale University 93 87 $3.0B ⬇ –1
22 USC 91 89 $1.6B ⬇ –5
23 Tel Aviv University 85 75 $1.5B ⬆ +1
24 Carnegie Mellon University 83 78 $980M ⬇ –3
25 University of Toronto 80 74 $2.2B ⬆ +4
26 University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 73 62 $1.2B ⬆ +1
T27 Duke University 71 66 $1.8B ⬇ –1
T27 Boston University 71 69 $1.3B ⬇ –2
29 Georgetown University 67 64 $605M ⬇ –1
30 University of Washington, Seattle 59 52 $462M
31 Technion – Israel Institute of Technology 56 43 $490M ⬆ +25
T32 Hebrew University 53 40 $1.3B ⬇ –1
T32 Tsinghua University 53 48 $1.1B
34 ESADE 52 48 $1.5B ⬆ +5
35 University of British Columbia 49 45 $617M ⬆ +2
36 Arizona State University, Tempe 48 48 $694M ⬆ +3
T37 University College London 47 43 $479M ⬆ +7
T37 University of Colorado, Boulder 47 45 $882M ⬆ +4
39 McGill University 46 44 $726M ⬇ –4
40 UC San Diego 45 44 $723M ⬇ –7
41 University of Wisconsin, Madison 44 42 $669M ⬇ –4
42 UNC Chapel Hill 43 40 $1.4B ⬆ +6
T43 University of Maryland, College Park 40 34 $580M ⬆ +1
T43 National University of Singapore 40 39 $3.4B
T43 University of Edinburgh, Scotland 40 37 $440M ⬇ –2
T43 George Washington University 40 38 $238M ⬆ +1
T43 Caltech 40 33 $1.1B ⬆ +4
48 Lund University 39 33 $277M ⬇ –13
49 Georgia Institute of Technology 38 37 $1.4B ⬆ +3

Female Founders (Undergraduate)

Rank
University
Founder Count
Company Count
Capital Raised
Change vs. 2024
1 University of California, Berkeley 291 289 $6.9B
2 Stanford University 250 241 $7.1B
3 Harvard University 231 224 $7.2B
4 University of Pennsylvania 207 201 $4.1B
5 Cornell University 161 156 $5.1B
6 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 141 140 $3.3B
7 New York University 132 129 $1.4B
8 Columbia University 131 129 $2.5B
T9 University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) 115 115 $2.5B
T9 Princeton University 115 110 $2.6B ⬆ +1
11 University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 113 109 $1.9B ⬆ +2
12 Yale University 109 108 $5.6B ⬇ –1
13 Northwestern University 108 105 $2.3B ⬇ –3
14 Brown University 107 106 $3.8B ⬇ –3
15 University of Toronto 96 92 $823M ⬆ +4
16 Duke University 94 93 $1.4B ⬇ –1
17 McGill University 93 92 $1.3B ⬇ –1
18 University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 85 82 $3.2B ⬇ –1
19 University of Southern California (USC) 79 78 $1.4B ⬇ –2
20 University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 77 75 $1.0B ⬆ +6
T21 Tel Aviv University 74 73 $1.4B ⬇ –1
T21 Boston University 74 72 $823M
23 Dartmouth College 69 68 $3.9B ⬇ –1
24 University of Colorado, Boulder 67 65 $964M
T25 Georgetown University 65 65 $1.4B ⬇ –2
T25 Peking University 65 64 $2.9B ⬆ +5
T25 University of Virginia, Charlottesville 65 64 $820M ⬆ +1
28 National University of Singapore 64 62 $1.0B ⬆ +3
29 University of Western Ontario 62 57 $223M ⬆ +78
T30 University of Wisconsin, Madison 59 58 $562M ⬇ –5
T30 University of Washington, Seattle 59 57 $61.2B ⬇ –4
32 University of California, San Diego 58 58 $1.4B ⬇ –3
33 University of Waterloo 54 52 $520M
34 University of Oxford 53 53 $562M ⬆ +1
T35 University of Chicago 51 47 $546M ⬆ +9
T35 Carnegie Mellon University 51 50 $1.1B ⬇ –4
37 Tufts University 50 49 $1.1B ⬇ –3
38 Delhi University, India 49 49 $1.0B ⬆ +3
T39 Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) 48 48 $353M
T39 Vanderbilt University 48 48 $898M ⬇ –4
T39 University of British Columbia 48 48 $410M ⬆ +6
42 Wellesley College 47 47 $882M ⬇ –3
T43 Technion – Israel Institute of Technology 46 46 $755M ⬆ +8
T43 Tsinghua University 46 46 $2.2B ⬆ +2
T45 University of Florida, Gainesville 45 45 $636M ⬇ –10
T45 University of Maryland, College Park 45 45 $286M ⬇ –10
T47 University of California, Davis 44 44 $1.2B ⬇ –5
T47 University of Sydney 44 44 $362M ⬆ +4
T49 Hebrew University 43 41 $1.7B ⬇ –6
T49 Monash University 43 42 $617M ⬆ +25

DON’T MISS: 2025 BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK MBA RANKING: STANFORD RETAINS #1 SPOT and 2025 LINKEDIN MBA RANKING: FRESH CONCEPT UNDERCUT BY FATAL FLAW

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