Which universities are hotspots for startup founders? The University of Colorado ranked No. 39 for undergraduate universities based on a ranking from venture capital data firm PitchBook's database. The firm examined more than 150,000 VC-backed founders and is based on the number of alumni who've raised venture funding as startup founders.
PitchBook recently published its list of the top 100 colleges ranked by startup founders, an analysis looking at the number of alumni entrepreneurs who've gone on to raise venture capital funding in the last 10 years.
While the typical heavy-hitter startup schools like Stanford, UC Berkeley and Harvard are often top of mind for entrepreneurs, the ranking shows that over the last decade universities across the country have produced hundreds of venture-backed startup founders who have raised billions in funding for their companies.
CU has seen 381 of its undergraduates become founders who went on to raise $7.4 billion in capital over the last decade, according to PitchBook. Startups mentioned in this list with graduates from CU include Xpansiv, CoreWeave, Ethos Life and Cylance.
By comparison, Stanford University came in No. 1 on PitchBook's undergraduate list with 1,435 of its undergrad alumni raising more than $73 billion in funding in the last decade, according to PitchBook. Some of the top startups from Stanford graduates include Robinhood, DoorDash and Nubank.
Following Stanford on PitchBook's list are the University of California, Berkeley; Harvard University; University of Pennsylvania; MIT; and Cornell University.
Stanford, Cal and Harvard ranked first, second and third on PitchBook's list of top colleges for startup founders last year, as well.
PitchBook also examined universities and VC-backed female founders this year. The top of that resulting list is similar to the overall startup founder list with Stanford, Cal, Harvard and Penn ranking No. 1 through No. 4 in terms of undergrad alumni who've gone on to raise funding as a startup founder.
CU did slightly better on this list coming in at No. 27 with 57 female founders graduating from the university. These founders went on to raise $545 million, according to PitchBook. CU alumni are part of the founding team at businesses like Tentarix Biotherapeutics, Havenly and Nitrase Therapeutics.
Women-led startups historically have raised only a fraction of what their male counterparts have garnered, and that dynamic is reflected in the PitchBook data. At Stanford, for example, funding to startups with female founders made up just 7% of all funding that went to startups from Stanford undergrad alumni in the last 10 years. At CU, that portion faired slightly better at 7.36%.
CU plans to continue fostering a startup ecosystem with a recently announced program. The program, called Embark Deep Tech Startup Creator, aims to take discoveries made by CU Boulder's research community and pair them with entrepreneurs to launch new companies. Executives and entrepreneurs don't have to be associated with the university, however. The program was announced in August but officially began last March with a group of entrepreneurs and 10 inventions they’ll try to bring to market.
