Many attempts have been made to create a ranking of unicorn universities where the number of unicorn companies founded by university graduates is often taken as a comparison metric. However, this can’t identify real unicorn breeders.
In our ranking, we decided to go further and show the Top Universities by the amount of money raised and increase in unicorn value. These indicators provide a more honest basis for comparing unicorn universities and building a ranking.
Unicorn Nest has algorithms that know how unicorns are made and are able to identify such startups, while taking into account the total amount of money raised and their industry. We call them pseudo unicorn companies. In addition to historical ranking, we also created a quarterly one. This approach reflects the real dynamics of the unicorn club. Moreover, we have ranked the top universities not only by unicorn founders but also by the key persons of the funds who invested in startups that reached unicorn status. Nobody has done this before.
In the second part of our ranking, we investigated the question of whether university ties affect the amount of money raised in a round and whether there are relationships in the degree and field of education between unicorn founders and fund key persons, which illustrates how to network efficiently.
To build the ranking, we defined unicorn startups and collected anonymized data about the places of studies of the unicorn founders and key persons of the associated funds.
The dataset also includes:
• 890 unicorns and pseudo unicorns
• 1,964 rounds of startups that became unicorns in a round and repeated rounds of unicorns
• 2,338 unique funds that have invested in unicorn rounds
• 1,966 universities from 84 countries
Top 15 Universities by Money Raised in 4th Quarter 2020
The first chart shows university rankings by money raised by unicorn companies for the fourth quarter of 2020 (from the unicorn founders’ side).
Top 15 Universities of Funds Key Persons Invested in Unicorns in 4th Quarter 2020
The second chart shows university rankings from the funds key persons side.
Top Universities by Increase in Unicorns Value in 4th Quarter 2020
This chart shows university rankings by increase in unicorn valuation for the fourth quarter of 2020 from the unicorn founders side.
Top 15 Universities of Funds Key Persons Invested in Unicorns by Increase in the Value of Startups in 4th Quarter 2020
The chart shows university rankings from the funds key persons side.
By number of Unicorns
By Money Raised and Unicorn Valuation in selected World’s Region
Top 15 Universities by Funds Invested in Unicorns
Top 15 Universities by Unicorns Money Raised
Top 15 Universities of Funds Key Persons invested in Unicorns by Unicorn Valuation
Top 15 Universities of Unicorn Founders by Unicorn Valuation
We decided not only to display the actual picture of the ranking but also to assess the strength of university ties influence. To do this, we built a regression model that included university affiliation between startups and foundations.
Regression analysis showed that university connections explain the amount of money raised in a unicorn round by 15% for startups and 21% for funds (R2 Score – coefficient of determination).
We also included a variable that shows the intersection between unicorn founders and funds key persons in the places of study within the same round. However, for the regression model, this variable was not significant.
This speedometer shows the share of unicorn deals with an overlap in a university of startup founders and key persons of funds who invested in rounds for the last year.
Top 5 Universities of Funds Key Persons by money raised
We have selected top 5 universities of funds key persons in order to look at the startups of the graduates of which universities they invest in more often. This allows to check if any university ties exist when choosing a startup for investment and serves as good networking tips.
| Harvard Business School | Stanford Graduate School of Business | Harvard University | University of Pennsylvania | Stanford University | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stanford University5.57% | Stanford University6.58% | Stanford University6.52% | Stanford University6.39% | Stanford University6.91% |
| 2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology3.14% | Harvard University3.49% | Massachusetts Institute of Technology3.75% | Harvard University3.47% | Massachusetts Institute of Technology3.77% |
| 3 | Harvard Business School3.09% | Massachusetts Institute of Technology3.27% | Harvard University3.75% | Massachusetts Institute of Technology3.38% | Harvard University3.55% |
| 4 | Harvard University3.06% | Harvard Business School2.85% | Harvard Business School3.49% | Harvard Business School3.34% | Harvard Business School3.02% |
| 5 | University of California, Los Angeles2.12% | University of California, Los Angeles2.28% | University of California, Los Angeles2.05% | University of California, Los Angeles2.19% | University of California, Los Angeles2.19% |
Distribution of degree received by Unicorn Founders and Funds Key Persons
Here we show the ratio of the degree of key fund persons and unicorn founders.
Distribution of field of study by Unicorn Founders and Funds Key Persons
For the top three universities, we compared the industries in which graduates found startups and invest money to reveal university schools with high student networking.
| Stanford University | University of California, Los Angeles | Harvard Business School | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unicorn Founders | Funds Key Persons | Unicorn Founders | Funds Key Persons | Unicorn Founders | Funds Key Persons |
| Financial Services3.98 | Retail2.75 | Real Estate4.55 | Artificial Intelligence4.05 | Logistics3.08 | Retail3.11 |
| Artificial Intelligence2.99 | Artificial Intelligence2.31 | Finance4.55 | Retail3.38 | Finance3.08 | Service Industry2.81 |
| Logistics2.99 | Service Industry2.22 | FinTech4.55 | Security2.36 | FinTech3.08 | Big Data1.91 |
| FinTech2.49 | Shopping1.86 | Cloud Computing4.55 | Medical Device2.36 | Financial Services3.08 | Shopping1.79 |
| Travel1.99 | Big Data1.86 | Artificial Intelligence4.55 | Cyber Security2.36 | Cloud Data Services2.31 | Manufacturing1.73 |
In the fourth quarter 2020 the following Unicorn Universities topped the ranking: Harvard Business School — by money raised by unicorn startups from the funds key persons side; Stanford University — by money raised by unicorn startups from the Unicorn founders side; Yale University — by increase in unicorn valuation from the Fund’s key persons side; University of California, Los Angeles — by Increase in Unicorn Valuation from the Unicorn founders side
Top University of All Time by number unicorn companies are:
• Stanford University from the Unicorn founders side
• Harvard Business School from the Fund’s key persons side
Top University of all time by total money raised by unicorn companies
• Stanford University from the Unicorn founders side
• Harvard Business School from the Fund’s key persons side
Top University of all time by increase in unicorn companies valuation
• Stanford University from the Unicorn founders side
• Harvard Business School from the Fund’s key persons side
The regression model shows that the university connections explain how to become a unicorn by no more than 21%. The presence of an intersection at the place of study is not significant.
The share of unicorn deals with an overlap between a university of startup founders and key persons of funds that invested in the round in the Q4 of 2020 is 7.36%. For the three previous quarters it was 11.1%, 16.7%, and 14.3% respectively.
Funds that employ alumni from Harvard University, Stanford University, and University of Pennsylvania more often invest in unicorn companies founded by Stanford University alumni.
There is more Ph.D. degree received among the Unicorn founders than funds key persons and the opposite situation with an MBA degree.
Computer Science & AI are the most popular fields among the Unicorn founders and Finance among Funds key persons.
Stanford University alumni create startups and invest money more often in Financial Services, Retail, and Artificial Intelligence.
University of California, Los Angeles alumni create startups and invest money more often in Real Estate, Artificial Intelligence, Finance, and Retail.
Harvard Business School alumni create startups and invest money more often in Logistics, Retail, Finance, and Service Industry.
We are going to publish the unicorn universities ranking on a quarterly basis. Check our previous one.
Stay tuned!
