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September 12, 2024 | Tom Ballard

PitchBook releases its annual ranking of universities producing the most start-up founders

Vanderbilt is the only Tennessee-based university on the list.

PitchBook has released its annual university rankings that compare schools by tallying up the number of alumni entrepreneurs who have raised venture capital in the last decade. The rankings are powered by PitchBook data and are based on an analysis of nearly 167,000 venture capital-backed founders.

The only Tennessee university on the list is Vanderbilt which ranked #59, just behind The Ohio State University. The Nashville-based institution clocked in with 298 founders, 288 companies, and $6.5 billion raised by those start-ups.

Topping the rankings was the University of California, Berkeley with an impressive 1,811 alumni who founded 1,642 companies that raised $59.7 billion. In second place was Stanford University which logged 1,547 founders of 1,397 companies that raised $80.1 billion in venture capital.

The highest ranked Southeastern Conference institution was the University of Texas at Austin that had 842 founders of 773 companies that raised $21.7 billion. It placed #9 on the list.

The full list can be found here.



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