INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Joanna GlasnerContributorMore posts by this contributorCEOs of funded startups tend to be a well-educated bunch, at least when it comes to
But Crunchbase data shows that most startup chief executives have an advanced degree, commonly from a well-known and prestigious
This unearthed some findings that, while interesting, were not especially surprising
Stanford and Harvard topped the list, and graduates of top-ranked business schools were particularly well-represented.In this next
installment of our CEO series, we narrowed the data set
Specifically, we looked at CEOs of United States companies funded in the past three years that have raised at least $100 million in total
Our intent was to see whether educational backgrounds of unicorn and near-unicorn leaders differ markedly from the broad startup CEO
prestigious universities, and there are a lot of Harvard and Stanford grads
However, chief executives of the companies in our current data set are, educationally speaking, a pretty diverse bunch with degrees from
multiple continents and all regions of the United States In total, our data set includes 193 private United States companies that raised
$100 million or more and closed a VC round in the past three years
population of funded United States startups
In that data set, we also found Harvard and Stanford vying for the top slots, followed mostly by Ivy League schools and major research
universities.For heavily funded startups, we also found a high proportion of business school degrees
All of the University of Pennsylvania alum on the list attended its Wharton School of Business
More than half of Harvard-affiliated grads attended its business school
MBAs were a popular credential among other schools on the list that offer the degree.Where the most heavily funded startup CEOs studiedWhen
That makes sense, given that we looked at just 20 companies.In the chart below, we look at alumni affiliations for CEOs of these companies,
all of which have raised hundreds of millions or billions in venture and growth financing:One surprise finding from the United States
startup data set was the prevalence of Canadian university grads
Three CEOs on the list are alums of the University of Waterloo
Others attended multiple well-known universities
