Universities Where The Most Alumni Become Entrepreneurs

For many young founders, building a successful business from scratch begins on a college campus.

Universities offer the perfect mix of resources for a young entrepreneur. Students can meet other like-minded entrepreneurs who might go on to become their co‑founders. They can also pitch their first investors and test ideas that can grow into billion‑dollar companies.

A new ranking from Jenna Ross at Visual Capitalist shows which schools have graduated the most venture‑backed entrepreneurs over the past decade, using data from PitchBook. They looked at over 173,000 founders supported by venture capital who raised funding between January of 2014 to September of 2025.

UC Berkeley leads in undergraduate alumni who have gone on to found companies. This school is an absolute powerhouse with a reputation as a hub for innovation.

All in all, it was U.S. universities that dominated the list, with 15 of the top 20 schools.

Berkeley’s alumni include pioneers like Steve Wozniak, co‑founder of Apple; Gordon Moore, co‑founder of Intel; Tony Xu, co‑founder of DoorDash; and Anthony Levandowski, co‑founder of Waymo. No. 2 school Stanford, located in the heart of Silicon Valley, has graduated founders such as Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin; Instagram’s Kevin Systrom; and Snapchat’s Evan Spiegel. Harvard, meanwhile, has shaped global business through entrepreneurs such as Mark Zuckerberg, co‑founder of Facebook (Meta); Bill Gates, co‑founder of Microsoft; and Reid Hoffman, co‑founder of LinkedIn.

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