Harvard might be nearly four centuries old, but when it comes to launching billion-dollar businesses, the university is anything but outdated. Known for academic prestige and a powerhouse alumni network, Harvard continues to hold its ground as one of the top schools producing high-growth startup founders.
Alongside Stanford and MIT, Harvard consistently ranks in the top three institutions for graduating entrepreneurs behind some of the world’s most valuable venture-backed companies. While the school’s most famous dropouts—think Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg—grab headlines, the wave of current grads and former students founding and leading unicorns shows no signs of slowing down.
As graduation season rolls in and Harvard makes political headlines in its clash with the Trump administration, it’s a fitting moment to take stock of how the university is performing on the startup front today.
From Campus to Unicorns
The numbers tell a compelling story. According to Crunchbase, over 1,900 companies founded by Harvard alumni have each raised more than $1 million in equity funding. Altogether, these startups have pulled in more than $200 billion in funding—a significant chunk of it in just the past year.
For instance, if we count OpenAI’s massive raise of nearly $47 billion (co-founder and CEO Greg Brockman attended Harvard before transferring to MIT), Harvard-affiliated startups have attracted more than $54 billion in funding over the last 12 months.
Harvard’s startup roster features some of the biggest names in tech and healthcare. Stripe, the fintech giant co-founded by John Collison (a former Harvard student), sits at the top of the list. Rippling, a rising HR software star co-founded by Harvard alum Parker Conrad, recently raised $450 million at a staggering $16.8 billion valuation. And Devoted Health, led by brothers and Harvard grads Ed and Todd Park, is another standout with strong investor backing.
CEO Pipeline Keeps Flowing
It’s not just founders—Harvard is also producing CEOs at a striking rate. Crunchbase data shows there are currently 158 Harvard alumni serving as CEOs of unicorns, near-unicorns, or exited unicorns. Many of these leaders are also the original founders of the companies they now steer.
Names like Lyft, Grab, Cloudflare, and Moderna all trace their leadership roots back to Harvard. In particular, Harvard Business School stands out for producing future CEOs, especially those heading billion-dollar companies.
Interestingly, some of the biggest startup success stories—from Microsoft to Meta—come from founders who didn’t actually finish their degrees at Harvard. It lends weight to the idea that perhaps the most fundable entrepreneurs are those who enroll but don’t stick around.
Whether Harvard keeps churning out record-breaking startup founders remains to be seen. But the current track record is hard to ignore. With over $200 billion raised, dozens of unicorns, and hundreds of top executives, Harvard remains a breeding ground for startup leadership—and a serious player in shaping the next wave of tech innovation.
In upcoming updates, we’ll explore how Harvard stacks up against other top institutions in grooming tomorrow’s funded founders. But one thing’s for sure: when it comes to startup DNA, Harvard is still in the game.
