Universities are more than just centers of academic excellence – they are vibrant breeding grounds for innovation, entrepreneurship, and groundbreaking startups. The link between higher education and entrepreneurship is particularly evident in the number of startup founders who emerge from prestigious institutions, leveraging their access to cutting-edge research, world-class mentorship, and robust networks of peers and investors. From Silicon Valley giants to disruptive global enterprises, many of today’s most influential companies can trace their origins back to university campuses.
Here are the top 20 universities producing the most startup founders in the world.
| Rank | University | Founders |
| 1. | University of California, Berkeley | 1,804 |
| 2. | Stanford University | 1,519 |
| 3. | Harvard University | 1,355 |
| 4. | University of Pennsylvania | 1,206 |
| 5. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | 1,131 |
| 6. | Cornell University | 944 |
| 7. | Tel Aviv University | 865 |
| 8. | University of Texas, Austin | 850 |
| 9. | University of Michigan, Ann Arbor | 845 |
| 10. | Technion – Israel Institute of Technology | 783 |
| 11. | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | 751 |
| 12. | Yale University | 710 |
| 13. | University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) | 679 |
| 14. | Columbia University | 671 |
| 15. | Princeton University | 656 |
| 16. | University of Southern California (USC) | 644 |
| 17. | University of Toronto | 643 |
| 18. | University of Waterloo | 639 |
| 19. | Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay | 627 |
| 20. | Duke University | 625 |
