It was no accident that Silicon Valley sprung up in the same region as two major research universities.
But some 65 years later those two institutions — Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley — remain vital components of the tech industry ecosystem.
Over the last 15 years, the two universities' undergraduate programs produced more founders of venture-backed companies than those of any other institutions, according to a new study from PitchBook Data. Stanford ranked no. 1 overall, UC Berkeley, no. 2, both maintaining their positions from last year.
The Bay Area "has long been the epicenter of U.S. startup activity," said James Thorne, a senior editor at PitchBook.
Some 1,643 Stanford undergraduate alumni founded startups that attracted at least one round of venture funding between Jan. 1, 2006 and Oct. 31, 2021, according to PitchBook's report. Those alumni started 1,437 companies that collectively raised $76.7 billion in venture capital. Both of those figures outpaced those posted by the alumni of all other undergraduate institutions.
Stanford also topped the list of undergraduate programs for female founders. Some 235 of its alumnae started companies that attracted venture funding during the 15-year period PitchBook scrutinized. Collectively, those women founded 225 companies that raised $5.4 billion in funding. Stanford's undergraduate program ranked no. 1 in the number of female-founded, venture-backed companies and no. 2 in the amount they raised, trailing alumnae of Harvard University.
Meanwhile, UC Berkeley's undergraduate program produced 1,548 founders of venture-backed companies in the same 15-year period. Together, they started 1,383 companies that raised a combined $49 billion. In companies started, UC Berkeley outranked every other school but Stanford. In funding raised, it came in third, behind both Stanford and Harvard.
In terms of female founders, UC Berkeley ranked third, with 184, again trailing both Stanford and Harvard. Those women founded 183 companies that raised a collective $3.5 billion in venture capital, placing the institution no. 3 and no. 4 in those categories, behind Stanford, Harvard and, in the latter case, the University of Pennsylvania.
The study also ranked schools by the number of founders their MBA programs produced. Stanford came in second to Harvard in those rankings, both overall and in terms of the number of female founders. Some 1,223 Stanford MBAs founded venture-backed companies during the time period, compared to 1,856 alumni of Harvard's MBA program. Among the Stanford MBAs, 218 were women, compared to 343 from Harvard.
UC Berkeley ranked ninth in both in the total number of founders produced by its MBA program and in the number of female MBA founders. It had 513 total MBA founders, of whom 54 were women.
One surprising thing in the study was the jump foreign universities made in the rankings, Thorne said. On the undergraduate list, the two biggest movers from last year were the University of Toronto, which rose six spots to no. 27 and Tsinghua University in Beijing, which rose five spots to no. 37. The latter's undergraduate program has produced 387 founders of venture-backed companies who collectively have raised $41.6 billion in capital, according to the report.
