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

PITCHBOOK’S BEST UNIVERSITIES FOR GRADUATE 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.

Here are the top global universities based on graduate founders.

PitchBook 2025: Graduate Founders
Rank	University	Founder Count	Company Count	Capital Raised	Change vs. 2024
1	Stanford University	4,287	3,286	$242.6B	–
2	Harvard University	3,842	3,242	$222.8B	–
3	MIT	2,859	2,233	$137.3B	–
4	Columbia University	1,920	1,701	$61.2B	–
5	UC Berkeley	1,893	1,577	$129.4B	–
6	University of Pennsylvania	1,776	1,551	$62.1B	–
7	University of Cambridge	1,488	1,243	$44.0B	–
8	University of Oxford	1,410	1,171	$45.1B	–
9	Northwestern University	1,299	1,153	$34.9B	–
10	New York University	1,088	1,016	$87.6B	–
11	University of Chicago	1,033	905	$32.3B	⬆ +1
12	UCLA	1,022	881	$29.9B	⬇ –1
13	INSEAD	953	882	$21.9B	⬆ +1
14	Tel Aviv University	929	741	$19.7B	⬇ –1
15	Imperial College London	897	748	$14.4B	⬆ +5
T16	Cornell University	891	767	$32.6B	⬇ –1
T16	Carnegie Mellon University	891	741	$29.5B	–
18	HEC Paris	826	736	$13.9B	⬆ +5
19	USC	820	722	$32.2B	–
20	University of Texas, Austin	818	716	$25.3B	⬇ –2
21	University of Michigan, Ann Arbor	813	687	$28.6B	⬇ –4
22	Johns Hopkins University	711	610	$28.2B	⬆ +2
23	Tsinghua University	697	639	$39.8B	⬆ +2
24	Yale University	680	575	$30.2B	⬇ –3
25	University of Toronto	649	514	$80.4B	⬆ +1
26	London Business School	619	569	$14.0B	⬆ +1
27	University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign	618	499	$19.6B	⬇ –5
28	London School of Economics	599	573	$13.3B	–
29	Duke University	573	494	$18.0B	–
30	Technion – Israel Institute of Technology	558	418	$16.6B	⬆ +6
31	Georgia Institute of Technology	542	462	$33.3B	⬆ +1
32	ETH Zurich	537	379	$7.5B	⬆ +2
T33	Boston University	478	429	$10.1B	⬇ –3
T33	University of Washington, Seattle	478	393	$12.6B	⬇ –2
35	Hebrew University	435	331	$10.5B	⬇ –2
36	University of Wisconsin, Madison	419	346	$14.4B	⬇ –1
37	UC San Diego	404	327	$13.9B	–
38	University of Maryland, College Park	364	318	$11.0B	–
39	Georgetown University	356	333	$6.7B	⬆ +2
40	Technical University of Munich	346	278	$7.3B	⬆ +10
41	University of Minnesota, Twin Cities	344	281	$14.8B	⬇ –2
42	University of Virginia	343	308	$12.1B	⬇ –2
43	University College London	337	293	$7.4B	⬆ +11
44	IE University	336	300	$7.0B	⬆ +1
45	ESADE	330	307	$8.2B	⬆ +1
46	University of Colorado, Boulder	327	281	$11.8B	⬇ –4
47	Peking University	326	315	$17.2B	⬆ +10
48	McGill University	318	270	$10.2B	⬆ +4
49	Arizona State University, Tempe	317	286	$7.6B	⬇ –6
T50	Delft University of Technology	314	256	$2.5B	⬆ +7
T50	Purdue University	314	267	$9.8B	⬇ –6
52	National University of Singapore	312	289	$9.4B	⬆ +9
T53	University of British Columbia	308	263	$65.6B	⬆ +6
T53	University of Florida, Gainesville	308	261	$4.7B	⬇ –6
55	UNC Chapel Hill	297	271	$10.5B	⬇ –1
56	Lund University	294	231	$2.5B	⬇ –5
57	Caltech	291	235	$9.3B	⬇ –8
58	Seoul National University	283	211	$8.2B	⬆ +14
59	Ohio State University	282	245	$9.7B	⬇ –6
60	Washington University	280	232	$13.7B	⬇ –4
61	Copenhagen Business School	276	252	$3.0B	⬆ +4
62	IIT Bombay	267	237	$5.6B	⬆ +7
63	University of Edinburgh, Scotland	266	240	$3.8B	⬆ +1
64	George Washington University	264	253	$6.8B	⬇ –16
65	Princeton University	261	223	$37.4B	⬆ +1
T66	Technical University of Denmark	255	183	$2.9B	⬇ –3
T66	University of Tokyo	255	203	$7.4B	⬆ +11
68	Babson College	252	235	$4.3B	⬇ –8
69	KU Leuven	247	190	$3.6B	⬇ –8
70	University of Copenhagen	236	182	$3.8B	⬇ –3
71	Dartmouth College	231	220	$9.1B	⬇ –3
72	Penn State University	230	210	$6.7B	⬇ –2
73	University of Amsterdam	227	205	$5.4B	⬆ +10
74	Indiana University, Bloomington	224	205	$5.0B	⬇ –3
75	University of Waterloo	220	167	$3.3B	⬆ +22
T76	Bocconi University	218	208	$2.8B	⬆ +19
T76	Erasmus University Rotterdam	218	199	$1.8B	⬆ +12
T76	ESSEC Business School	218	210	$5.6B	⬆ +9
79	Northeastern University	217	202	$4.8B	–
T80	Ben Gurion University	215	173	$5.4B	⬆ +4
T80	Vanderbilt University	215	183	$5.2B	⬇ –6
T80	ESCP Europe	215	204	$5.8B	⬆ +2
83	Stockholm School of Economics	213	186	$3.8B	⬆ +8
84	Chalmers University of Technology	212	158	$2.8B	⬇ –3
85	KTH Royal Institute of Technology	211	182	$5.7B	⬇ –12
86	Ecole Polytechnique	210	191	$3.9B	⬆ +17
T87	Chinese Academy of Sciences	209	199	$9.3B	⬆ +21
T87	UC Davis	209	184	$8.7B	⬇ –10
89	Bar-Ilan University	207	183	$6.3B	–
90	Fudan University	206	197	$10.1B	⬆ +14
91	Indian School of Business (ISB)	204	184	$6.3B	⬆ +15
92	Weizmann Institute of Science	203	162	$5.7B	⬆ +4
93	Texas A&M University	202	186	$4.2B	⬇ –14
94	Emory University	195	172	$4.6B	⬇ –2
95	Uppsala University	192	153	$1.9B	⬇ –5
96	Rutgers University	189	171	$4.3B	⬆ +4
97	University of Warwick	188	182	$2.7B	⬆ +13
T98	University of Massachusetts	186	168	$4.8B	⬇ –23
T98	University of Pittsburgh	186	158	$2.9B	⬇ –23
T98	University of Western Ontario	186	170	$3.3B	⬆ +18

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PitchBook 2025: Graduate Founders

Rank

University

Founder Count

Company Count

Capital Raised

Change vs. 2024