The University of Pennsylvania is one of the top schools in the world for both graduate and undergraduate entrepreneurs, with alumni raising nearly $90 billion collectively over the last decade.
Penn joins the likes of Stanford University, the University of California-Berkeley, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the top, according to a new report from venture capital data firm Pitchbook, which compiled a list of the 100 universities that produce the most venture-backed startup founders.
Penn finds itself as the No. 5 school for undergraduate startup founders and No. 6 for graduate founders. The local Ivy League university also produces female founders at one of the highest rates in the country, ranking in the top five for both undergraduate and graduate female founders.
Pitchbook's report evaluated schools based on the number of founders whose companies received a first round of venture funding between Jan. 1, 2012, and Oct. 21, 2022.
Penn's more than 1,000 undergrad founders have raised $32 billion in capital, while another $57.7 billion has been raised by 1,456 alumni of Penn's grad schools.
The 2022 rankings drop Penn from its perch as the No. 3 startup-producing graduate program, a spot it held in 2020 and 2021. The university has held steady as the No. 5 undergraduate program since 2020, according to Pitchbook.
Some of the most successful modern startups like Warby Parker, Allbirds and Misfits Market have come out of Penn.
Outside of the immediate Philadelphia area, Penn State University ranks No. 34 with 195 undergraduate founders that have raised a total of $5.7 billion.
In New Jersey, Princeton University ranks No. 12 and Rutgers University ranks No. 67 for undergraduate startup founders.
While elite coastal schools topped the rankings, there was plenty of geographic diversity near the top of the list.
The University of Texas, University of Illinois, University of Wisconsin and Duke University all cracked the top 20 undergraduate universities for startup founders.
At Stanford, the top undergraduate university on Pitchbook's list, a total of 1,427 founders raised funding during that span, cumulatively collecting more than $73 billion. While holding a slim lead over No. 2 UC-Berkeley in terms of the number of founders getting checks (1,406), Stanford holds a much stronger lead in dollars raised. UC-Berkeley founders raised just under $46 billion in the last decade.
When it comes to graduate schools, Stanford, Harvard and MIT lead the way. The graduate school top 10 list also includes Columbia University (No. 4), Northwestern University (No. 9) and New York University (No. 10).
In Pitchbook's ranking of the best universities for female founders, Stanford and Harvard top the list for both undergrad and graduate schools with more than 700 each. Penn's total of 377 female founders have raised a collective $8.5 billion.
Here are Pitchbook's top 10 schools in each category. You can read the full list from Pitchbook here.
Top 10 undergraduate universities for startup founders
- Stanford University
- University of California, Berkeley
- Harvard University
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- University of Pennsylvania
- Cornell University
- Tel Aviv University
- University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
- University of Texas at Austin
- Yale University
Top 10 graduate universities for startup founders
- Stanford University
- Harvard University
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Columbia University
- University of California, Berkeley
- University of Pennsylvania
- University of Cambridge
- University of Oxford
- Northwestern University
- New York University
Top 10 undergraduate universities for female founders
- Stanford University
- Harvard University
- University of California, Berkeley
- University of Pennsylvania
- Cornell University
- New York University
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Yale University
- Columbia University
- University of California, Los Angeles
Top 10 graduate universities for female founders
- Harvard University
- Stanford University
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Columbia University
- University of Pennsylvania
- University of California, Berkeley
- New York University
- University of Oxford
- Northwestern University
- University of Cambridge
