PitchBook’s 2026 Top Universities, Ranked By Number Of MBA Startup Founders

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PITCHBOOK’S TOP UNIVERSITIES FOR GRADUATE FOUNDERS

PitchBook’s list of graduate programs by number of founders — which include MBAs as well as other master’s and doctoral degrees — are also dominated by U.S. schools. However, two UK universities (Cambridge and Oxford) broke the top 10.

Stanford University reclaimed the No. 1 spot with 5,508 graduate founders of 4,189 companies raising $318.6 billion over the last decade. Harvard follows with 4,840 graduate founders and $502.2 billion raised, while MIT takes third with 3,833 graduate founders and $329.6 billion raised.

PitchBook analyzed educational information for more than 222,000 VC-backed founders, compared to more than 173,000 in its 2025 ranking.

This year’s ranking counts founders whose companies received a round of venture funding between January 1, 2015 and August 1, 2026. Qualifying funding includes seed, early- and later-stage venture capital, angel investment and several restart funding categories. Because companies can have multiple founders — and founders can attend more than one university — the same company or entrepreneur can be credited to multiple schools. Pitchbook breaks it results into separate lists for MBA, graduate, and undergraduate categories, as well as female founders and European University MBA founders.

Data used comes from the PitchBook Platform or is collected from publicly available and primary sources.

PitchBook 2026: Graduate Founders
2026 Rank
University
Founder Count
Company Count
Capital Raised
Change vs. 2025
1 Stanford University 5,508 4,189 $318.6B –
2 Harvard University 4,840 4,070 $502.2B –
3 MIT 3,833 2,943 $329.6B –
4 UC Berkeley 2,468 2,035 $338.3B ⬆ +1
5 Columbia University 2,353 2,090 $92.9B ⬇ –1
6 University of Pennsylvania 2,225 1,934 $121.5B –
7 University of Cambridge 1,928 1,595 $63.9B –
8 University of Oxford 1,793 1,493 $69.8B –
9 Northwestern University 1,636 1,448 $54.8B –
10 New York University 1,392 1,301 $228.8B –
11 Cornell University 1,352 1,137 $54.5B ⬆ +5
12 University of Chicago 1,295 1,130 $50.2B ⬇ –1
13 UCLA 1,272 1,108 $55.3B ⬇ –1
14 Imperial College London 1,186 980 $23.3B ⬆ +1
15 Tel Aviv University 1,153 914 $32.6B ⬇ –1
16 INSEAD 1,151 1,066 $40.2B ⬇ –3
17 Carnegie Mellon University 1,129 935 $81.4B ⬇ –1
18 HEC Paris 1,124 1,000 $28.2B –
19 University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 1,082 902 $50.0B ⬆ +2
20 University of Texas, Austin 1,049 906 $37.1B –
21 USC 1,015 890 $58.4B ⬇ –2
22 Johns Hopkins University 902 773 $41.2B –
23 Tsinghua University 879 806 $84.2B –
24 Yale University 876 743 $44.3B –
25 University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 872 701 $31.5B ⬆ +2
26 University of Toronto 828 655 $256.6B ⬇ –1
27 London School of Economics 759 727 $22.6B ⬆ +1
28 ETH Zurich 749 527 $13.7B ⬆ +4
29 London Business School 737 680 $20.4B ⬇ –3
T30 Technion – Israel Institute of Technology 721 549 $26.9B –
T30 Duke University 721 625 $27.5B ⬇ –1
32 Georgia Institute of Technology 683 583 $63.2B ⬇ –1
33 University of Washington, Seattle 616 510 $23.3B –
T34 University of Wisconsin, Madison 598 490 $24.4B ⬆ +2
T34 Boston University 598 533 $17.2B ⬇ –1
36 Hebrew University 543 413 $17.4B ⬇ –1
37 UC San Diego 532 428 $20.9B –
38 IE University 508 449 $11.7B ⬆ +6
39 University of Maryland, College Park 502 434 $17.2B ⬇ –1
40 University of Virginia, Charlottesville 477 415 $17.8B ⬆ +2
41 University College London 462 409 $12.6B ⬆ +2
42 Technical University of Munich 456 369 $9.7B ⬇ –2
43 University of Colorado, Boulder 438 375 $15.8B ⬆ +3
44 ESADE 435 396 $11.0B ⬆ +1
45 University of Minnesota, Twin Cities 431 362 $19.2B ⬇ –4
46 Georgetown University 429 401 $9.9B ⬇ –7
47 IESE Business School 418 378 $8.6B –
48 Arizona State University, Tempe 408 365 $10.1B ⬆ +1
49 Delft University of Technology 407 331 $4.0B ⬆ +1
50 Peking University 403 387 $24.0B ⬇ –3
51 National University of Singapore 390 346 $8.9B ⬆ +1
52 Purdue University 389 333 $17.9B ⬇ –2
53 UNC Chapel Hill 386 352 $13.1B ⬆ +2
T54 University of British Columbia 385 323 $10.4B ⬇ –1
T54 University of Waterloo 385 290 $10.8B ⬆ +21
56 McGill University 384 329 $13.2B ⬇ –8
57 University of Florida, Gainesville 378 321 $6.2B ⬇ –4
58 California Institute of Technology 377 310 $13.9B ⬇ –1
59 Seoul National University 370 275 $6.8B ⬇ –1
60 Lund University 360 275 $4.3B ⬇ –4
61 Washington University 352 293 $17.5B ⬇ –1
62 University of Edinburgh, Scotland 347 312 $7.0B ⬆ +1
T63 George Washington University 346 331 $10.5B ⬆ +1
T63 Copenhagen Business School 346 313 $6.3B ⬇ –2
65 IIT Bombay 345 295 $13.9B ⬇ –3
66 KU Leuven 342 271 $5.7B ⬆ +3
67 Princeton University 337 287 $140.1B ⬇ –2
T68 Babson College 325 298 $6.9B –
T68 University of Tokyo 325 263 $10.5B ⬇ –2
70 Dartmouth College 323 295 $13.1B ⬆ +1
71 Technical University of Denmark 318 237 $4.1B ⬇ –5
72 Ohio State University 314 278 $12.6B ⬇ –13
T73 Erasmus University Rotterdam 305 278 $2.3B ⬆ +3
T73 University of Copenhagen 305 233 $7.5B ⬇ –3
75 Indiana University, Bloomington 304 278 $8.3B ⬇ –1
76 KTH Royal Institute of Technology 299 254 $8.9B ⬆ +9
77 Vanderbilt University 297 252 $8.1B ⬆ +3
78 University of Amsterdam 293 266 $8.2B ⬇ –5
79 Penn State 292 260 $9.7B ⬇ –7
80 Bocconi University 285 271 $3.7B ⬇ –4
81 Northeastern University 281 263 $8.9B ⬇ –2
82 ESSEC Business School 280 263 $6.4B ⬇ –6
83 Chalmers University of Technology 274 202 $5.9B ⬆ +1
T84 Stockholm School of Economics 268 235 $13.0B ⬇ –1
T84 Uppsala University 268 197 $7.1B ⬆ +11
T84 University of New South Wales 268 246 $7.5B ⬆ +21
T84 ESCP Europe 268 253 $7.7B ⬇ –4
88 University of Warwick 267 259 $3.7B ⬆ +9
89 Fudan University 266 252 $13.5B ⬆ +1
90 University of Melbourne 262 225 $7.9B ⬆ +25
T91 Texas A&M University 261 242 $7.0B ⬆ +2
T91 UC Davis 261 234 $11.9B ⬇ –4
T91 Ben Gurion University 261 216 $7.8B ⬇ –11
94 Ecole Polytechnique 259 235 $6.7B ⬇ –8
95 Chinese Academy of Sciences 256 245 $36.0B ⬇ –8
T96 Bar-Ilan University 251 219 $9.7B ⬇ –7
T96 Weizmann Institute of Science 251 199 $7.6B ⬇ –4
98 Politecnico di Milano 250 183 $2.5B ⬆ +11
T99 University of Massachusetts, Amherst 246 221 $10.3B ⬇ –1
T99 Indian School of Business 246 222 $7.9B ⬇ –8

 

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