TAU Retains 8th Spot In World Ranking Of Universities Producing Top Entrepreneurs

By NoCamels Team September 09, 2019 3 minutes

Graduation caps in the air. Illustrative photo by Pexels

Tel Aviv University (TAU) retained its 8th spot compared to last year in a world ranking of top universities producing entrepreneurs and startup founders who went on to raise significant capital.

According to the most recent report on universities by Pitchbook, a research company covering private capital markets, TAU placed 8th worldwide among the top 50 under undergrad programs with a founder count of 694 and a company count of 577.

The report ranks university programs across categories such as undergrad and MBA; previously it also ranked exits, and unicorns, in reference to companies valued at over $1 billion. This year, Pitchbook also ranked the top 25 undergrad programs for female founders and top 25 MBA for female founders. The data was gathered between January 2006 and August 2019, spanning some 13.5 years.

According to Pitchbook, Israeli founders who emerged from TAU’s undergrad programs raised some $10 billion in capital over the years.

Pitchbook went on to name the top companies, by capital raised, founded by entrepreneurs with an undergraduate degree from TAU: Houzz, the Israeli-American interior design company said valued at over $4 billion; Generate Capital, a San Francisco-based finance company co-founded by Israeli entrepreneur Matan Freidman; Innoviz Technologies, a leading Israel-based provider of solid-state LiDAR sensors and perception software, which has raised over $250 million in capital; and Monday.com, the Israeli-founded visual project management tool, which has raised over $230 million.

In the same category ranking the top 50 undergrad programs, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology also retained its 14th spot compared to last year, producing 510 entrepreneurs who have gone on to found 433 companies raising $9.3 billion. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem came in 34th this year, up one spot from last year, with 333 entrepreneurs, 294 companies and $5.5 billion in raised capital.

The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology campus in Haifa. Photo via Technion Spokesperson office

Ben-Gurion University debuted in the ranking at 49 out of the top 50 undergrad programs, with 240 entrepreneurs who have gone on to found 214 companies raising $3 billion.

Pitchbook listed companies Better Place (since bankrupted) and Innoviz Technologies among the top companies founded by graduates of the Technion and Cybereason, Via, and Lightricks among top startups founded by graduates of the Hebrew University. Moovit, JFrog and Valens were listed among the top companies founded by graduates of Ben-Gurion University.

TAU was the only non-American university in the top 10. The top spot went to Stanford University (with 1,228 entrepreneurs) followed by the University of California, Berkeley, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania closed out the top five.

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In the top 25 MBA programs category, Tel Aviv University retained its 13th spot from last year with 253 entrepreneurs and 241 companies. The top five Israeli companies by venture capital raised in this category were Houzz, Innoviz Technologies, BlueVine, a company that developed payment solutions tech for small businesses and has raised almost $600 million to date, Team8, a leading Israeli cybersecurity think tank and foundry, and IronSource, a market leader in app monetization and distribution valued at $1.5 billion.

Harvard University placed first in the top 25 MBA programs.

No Israeli universities were featured in the top 25 undergrad program for female founders category nor the top 25 MBA for female founders. Stanford University and Harvard University topped those rankings, respectively.

The largest university in Israel

With over 30,000 students, half of whom are in master’s or doctoral programs, Tel Aviv University is the largest in Israel. The public research university boasts nine faculties, 17 teaching hospitals, 18 performing arts centers, 27 schools, 106 departments, 340 research centers and 400 laboratories.

In 2017, TAU was ranked among the top 10 colleges worldwide that have graduated the most founders of unicorns, according to British business management firm Sage, which ranked the Israeli institution at number eight.

That same year, the university was among three Israeli universities ranked in Reuters’ 100 World’s Most Innovative Universities.

Earlier this year, TAU received the highest ranking for an Israeli institution in a list of top 100 universities around the globe with registered patents in the United States during 2018. The list was put together by the National Academy of Inventors and Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO.)

Tel Aviv University ranked 66th on the list of Top 100 Worldwide Universities Granted US Utility Patents in 2018. The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa was the second Israeli university on the list, with the 75th spot.