Four Canadian schools were named among the top 50 in a recent PitchBook ranking of the top 100 post-secondary institutions most likely to produce founders of venture-backed companies.
The University of Waterloo ranked highest of all Canadian universities at 21st place, moving up one spot from last year. The other schools in the top 50 were McGill, the University of Toronto, and the University of British Columbia, at 26th, 27th, and 44th respectively.
The University of Waterloo ranked highest of all Canadian universities at 21st place, moving up one spot from last year.
Other Canadian schools included in the latter half of the top 100 were Queen’s University, the University of Western Ontario, York University, and Concordia University.
PitchBook analyzed more than 144,000 venture-backed founders whose companies received the first round of venture funding between January 1st, 2012, and October 21st, 2022.
In previous years, PitchBook based its top post-secondary university ranking system on all venture funding raised since 2006. For this year and going forward, PitchBook will base its yearly report on venture funding from the past decade.
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Also new this year was an expanded list from 50 to 100 schools, expanded graduate program ranking, and several new filtering functionalities such as by region, enrollment size, and public-private schools.
The University of Waterloo advanced one position from last year’s rankings. The school is the alma mater of 494 founders for 406 venture-backed companies, such as Databricks, Instacart, and Netskope. In total, all startups from University of Waterloo graduates combined to raise $19.4 billion in funding in the last decade.
McGill, moving up three spots from last year, has produced 444 founders responsible for founding 411 venture-backed companies raising a cumulative $15.5 billion in funding in the last decade. Founders graduating from the University of Toronto raised $14.9 billion in funding across 392 venture-backed companies. The University of British Columbia has produced 293 founders, cumulatively founding 254 venture-backed companies that raised $4.6 billion in funding.
Unchanged from last year’s results were the top five schools: Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Pennsylvania.