Crunchbase: UIUC Alumni Among Top Founders Attracting Startup Funding

A degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is a common possession of funded founders.

Crunchbase, a platform for finding business information on private and public companies, released data pertaining to the correlation between one’s degree and one’s probability of becoming a funded founder. Its findings exhibit which U.S. Universities have produced the greatest number of founders.

The dataset looks at founders from these schools that have raised $500,000 or more from 2021 through 2022, according to the article.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign ranks No. 14 with 70 funded founders reaching the threshold. It is one of only four public universities in the top 15.

Illinois is no stranger to the list as the school was also ranked amongst top universities in the previous year.

While there is no necessary credential for becoming a prosperous startup founder, data, along with history of innovation, indicates that great entrepreneurs come from a range of backgrounds.

“Schools that are known for being hard to get into, in general, seem to be fortuitous choices for future funded entrepreneurs,” wrote Crunchbase.

The technology advanced University of Illinois combines its values of innovation and creativity to generate an environment that leads to its quantity of successful funded founders.

Ranking chart below. (SOURCE: Crunchbase)