The Unicorn Universities

Getting in at the beginning of a future unicorn is the dream of almost every VC investor. Apart from relying on sheer luck, an enormous amount of man hours are spent every day trying to work out which start-ups have the magic ingredients to spawn the fabled private company valued at more than one billion dollars.

Finding such companies at their genesis is of course very difficult; Mark Zuckerberg famously launched the first iteration of Facebook from his Harvard dormitory. Where then, should an investor look if he wants to maximise his chances of stumbling upon the next Facebook?

Our infographic, using data from Sage, shows the universities which have the most unicorn founders as alumni. Harvard is in second place with 37, but the place VC investors should pay closest attention to is Stanford. With 51 founders, including Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Evan Spiegel, the Californian institution has impressive unicorn pedigree.