Female startup founders face well-documented challenges in their entrepreneurial journeys, and attending a university with a strong network of venture-backed founders is one strategy to improve the odds of success.
PitchBook’s annual university rankings 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 VC-backed founders.
The female founders list is below, broken down by undergraduate, graduate and MBA programs, with filters for school size, location, and public or private funding status. We have also published lists for global universities and European universities.
Correction: Due to a data error, Doctolib was not included as part of HEC Paris’ top companies. The rankings have been updated to include that information. (Dec. 3, 2024)
Methodology
The 2024 PitchBook university rankings are based on the total number of founders whose companies received a round of venture funding between Jan. 1, 2013, and Aug. 1, 2024. The analysis is based on PitchBook data for global VC investment as well as the educational information of nearly 167,000 founders.
Since companies can have more than one founder, and founders can attend multiple schools, it is possible for the same company or founder to count toward multiple universities.
In the graduate category, founders who have an advanced degree, including those with an MBA, are counted, The MBA category only includes founders with an MBA from that institution.
Download the XLS version of this year’s list.
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Featured image by Joey Schaffer/PitchBook News
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