❎ XX Marks the Spot
Find out how the Athenas and female Sagehens are leading the way for Claremont
Make sure to check out Between the Lines — a newsletter telling stories about the Claremont Colleges’ entrepreneurship and technology!
Would you believe me if I told you that the Claremont Colleges graduate some of the most successful female startup founders of any other university? Would you believe me if I told you that Claremont female entrepreneurs raise more VC dollars than any other university on average? Would you believe that they raise almost double that of the next most prolific contenders beating out Harvard, Northwestern, and Yale female founder communities? You probably wouldn’t believe me….but that’s why you read, Between the Lines.
Over the last decade, numerous analyses have shown that female-founded startups exceed their male-founded counterparts in some of the most important metrics. Early-stage VC firm First Round Capital ran a study in 2015 that surfaced that the female-founded companies in their portfolio performed 63% better than the strictly male-founded companies in their portfolio¹. Consulting firm BCG also ran a study in 2018 that concluded that female-founded companies generate almost double the amount of revenue per venture dollar raised than only male-founded companies². Data from these studies and others continue to show that female founders can be a crucial ingredient for startup companies’ success. Our female Claremont alums are no exception, and they are truly killing the game more than most.
From 2006 through 2018, Claremont female founders raised $40M per company on average and in aggregate, more than a billion dollars. The average amount of $40M per female-founded company is more than any other university system during this period, beating out Harvard, Northwestern, Yale, MIT, and UCLA by almost double their respective totals³.
Okay, okay, okay…..but Claremont is way smaller and has far fewer female-founded companies than these other top universities, so that’s why it looks so impressive on a per-company basis, right? Sure, but Claremont College female entrepreneurs still rank 8th on a total capital basis during this period as well! 🤯 Moreover, the seven universities ahead of Claremont achieved their total capital number with an average of 98 companies. Claremont female alums did it with just 26! Twenty-six companies managed to raise over $1B. Whatever way you want to look at it, XX marks the spot for Claremont.
In case the benchmarking stats don’t quite do it for you, check this out:
- Over 120 startup companies have been founded by Claremont female alums dating back to 1996
- Combined, these companies have historically raised over $2.5B in private capital
- These companies employ over 94,000 people, including many other Claremont alums
- Of these companies, seven have been acquired for a combined total of $380M+, four have gone onto IPO and currently have a total market capitalization over $213B, and six currently private companies have already raised over $65M
Some of the impressive companies founded by Claremont females over the years that we’ll shout out include:
- Cisco, founded by CGU alum Sandy Lerner, is a public networking technology company with a market cap of $206B
- Intellia Therapeutics, founded by Pomona alum and Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna, is a public biotech company with a market cap of $4.5B
- Honeybook, founded by Pomona alum Shadiah Sigala, is a private collaboration tool and client management company with over $240M in venture dollars raised
- Urban Decay, also founded by Sandy Lerner, is a makeup and consumer goods company that was acquired for $350M
- LaunchDarkly, founded by HMC alum Edith Harbaugh, is a security infrastructure company with a current private valuation of nearly $1B
- Mammoth Biosciences, also founded by Jennifer Doudna, is a private biotech company that may have recently reached unicorn status
Other founders like Heather Potters, founder of needle-free injection technology Pharmajet; Maddie Hall, founder of bioengineered supertrees company Living Carbon; Laura Smith, founder of public biotech company Homology Medicines; Xiaoyin Qu, founder of digital events platform Run the World; and Miriam Cruz, founder of female wellness brand Agni; and many others are among the greater community of amazing talent that is pushing forward technology innovation. Continue to expect more from our female alums in the years to come…these are some big shoes to fill for the next generation!
[1] https://www.bcg.com/publications/2018/why-women-owned-startups-are-better-bet
[2] http://10years.firstround.com/
[3] Benchmarking data for other universities sourced from Pitchbook Universities: 2019, and Claremont-related data gathered from Pitchbook, Crunchbase, and LinkedIn by Miles Bird, Josh Tatum, and Adhi Venkantraman. Data analysis is only as good as the source data and the people behind the analysis, so on the source data front, we acknowledge that we are working with imperfect data sources in Pitchbook and Crunchbase. On the people front, please as always write in if you believe we have made a mistake and help us improve our data set! All data has been aggregated and analyzed to the best of our abilities.
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