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

PITCHBOOK’S BEST EUROPEAN UNIVERSITIES FOR UNDERGRADUATE FOUNDERS

PitchBook compiles its annual university ranking by tallying alumni entrepreneurs whose companies have attracted venture funding over the previous decade.

The 2026 edition is based on a considerably larger pool of founders than last year. PitchBook analyzed the educational histories of more than 222,000 VC-backed founders, up from more than 173,000 for its 2025 list.

PitchBook 2026: European Universities For Undergraduate Founders
2026 Rank	University	Founder Count	Company Count	Capital Raised	Change vs. 2025
1	University of Oxford	422	405	$19.9B	–
2	University of Cambridge	405	388	$20.6B	–
3	Trinity College Dublin	334	310	$8.2B	–
4	London School of Economics	296	284	$9.7B	–
5	Imperial College London	284	271	$9.4B	⬆ +1
6	Copenhagen Business School	260	235	$8.0B	⬇ –1
7	University College Dublin	242	225	$3.8B	–
8	University College London	238	229	$9.2B	–
9	University of Nottingham	232	227	$6.3B	–
10	University of Leeds	229	224	$6.5B	–
11	King’s College London	227	222	$5.4B	⬆ +17
12	University of London	219	217	$9.1B	⬆ +1
13	University of Warwick	217	207	$3.9B	⬇ –2
14	University of Bristol	195	189	$6.9B	⬇ –2
15	Bocconi University	188	179	$5.6B	–
16	Durham University	186	183	$8.5B	–
17	Technical University of Munich	174	151	$8.0B	–
18	University of Manchester Institute	173	170	$4.3B	⬇ –4
19	University of Bath	141	137	$13.5B	⬇ –1
T20	University of Birmingham	126	124	$1.5B	⬇ –1
T20	Delft University of Technology	126	109	$756M	⬆ +7
T22	Erasmus University Rotterdam	120	112	$1.6B	⬆ +8
T22	Lund University	120	111	$2.7B	–
T22	University of Southampton	120	119	$2.9B	⬇ –1
25	Stockholm School of Economics	118	111	$3.6B	–
26	ETH Zurich	112	101	$3.4B	⬆ +14
27	University of Amsterdam	111	103	$2.3B	⬆ +2
T28	Stockholm University	109	103	$2.4B	⬇ –4
T28	Open University	109	104	$4.3B	⬇ –5
30	University College Cork	107	98	$1.3B	⬇ –10
31	University of Edinburgh, Scotland	105	103	$1.8B	⬆ +5
32	University of Sheffield	103	98	$2.5B	⬆ +1
33	University of Exeter	100	98	$4.2B	⬇ –2
34	Maastricht University	96	86	$3.7B	⬆ +1
35	Cardiff University	94	88	$1.4B	⬆ +2
T36	Dublin City University	93	88	$829M	⬇ –4
T36	Aarhus University	93	88	$697M	⬆ +7
T38	University of Limerick	91	88	$1.0B	⬆ +3
T38	University of Copenhagen	91	88	$1.9B	⬆ +1
T40	Loughborough University	89	87	$945M	⬇ –6
T40	ESADE	89	84	$3.8B	⬇ –2
T42	Aalto University	87	74	$1.5B	⬆ +15
T42	Technical University of Denmark	87	80	$1.0B	⬆ +3
44	University of Sussex	86	83	$768M	⬆ +6
45	Politecnico di Milano	85	76	$575M	⬆ +1
46	University of Westminster	79	77	$1.6B	⬇ –4
T47	Middlesex University	77	77	$704M	⬆ +1
T47	Chalmers University of Technology	77	62	$615M	⬆ +5
T49	University of Liverpool	75	74	$3.8B	⬆ +2
T49	Lancaster University	75	72	$3.3B	⬆ +8
T49	University of St. Gallen	75	68	$3.8B	⬆ +5

DON’T MISS: WHARTON REPEATS NO. 1 FINISH ON NICHE’S 2027 BEST COLLEGES FOR BUSINESS RANKING AND TIME’S 2026 BEST COLLEGES RANKING

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