Chicago-area universities slid a bit in an annual ranking of schools by startup founders, but that hasn't slowed Northwestern University's fundraising.
Capital market data and research firm PitchBook compared schools based on the number of alumni entrepreneurs who have found success in the venture capital market in the last decade. Based on an analysis of more than 150,000 VC-backed founders, Stanford University topped the undergrad list at No. 1, followed by the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard University.
Northwestern was the top-ranked Chicago-area school, coming in at No. 25 (a drop from No. 23 last year) with 476 founders raising $18 billion. The University of Chicago was ranked No. 68 (down from No. 65 last year) with 247 raising $12.3 billion.
The top Illinois school was the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, ranked No. 15 (No. 14 last year) with 586 undergraduate founders raising $20.8 billion.
Chicago schools fared better when looking at MBA programs: Both Northwestern and UChicago were in the top seven with Northwestern coming in at No. 6 with 696 founders raising $19 billion total and UChicago ranking No. 7 with 653 founders raising $19.3 billion.
The rankings come as research funding at Northwestern topped $1 billion for the first time in fiscal year 2023, fueled by a 9% increase year-over-year in funding from a variety of sources, including federal agencies, foundations and corporate entities.
Overall, research funding for Northwestern has grown 83% since 2013.
