Rising Stars in Science — A few observations on the backgrounds of the Forbes 2024 30 Under 30 Honorees in the Science Track
The recently released 2024 Forbes 30 Under 30 list Science Track features an impressive crop of young talent pushing boundaries. We are proud that Lu Yin and Alan Liu, co-founders of Foothill Ventures’ portfolio company Persperion Diagnostics, are among the honorees this year.
Persperion Diagnostics, founded in 2022, aims to transform glucose monitoring for diabetics. Spun out of Dr. Lu Yin’s innovative research on non-invasive sweat-sensing wearables at UCSD, the startup targets the sizable $15 billion blood glucose monitoring market long dominated by finger pricks and inconvenient continuous glucose monitors.
In congratulating our portfolio founders on their inclusion on this list, we wanted to share some other quick observations:
To start, unsurprisingly, this group has shown significant dedication to science with great achievements — 27 of the 32 recipients (84%) have PhDs. In terms of doctoral programs, Stanford and MIT lead with 4 PhDs each, followed by Harvard and Berkeley tied at 2 each. What stands out, though, is how many are founders, with 10 of the 32 listed being founders of companies on the cutting edge in fields like biotech, satellites, AI, and more.
Additionally, based on available information, an estimated 23 of the honorees are immigrants themselves or the children of immigrants. 8 honorees received their bachelor’s degrees internationally. And there are 12 female innovators in the group. At Foothill Ventures, we are excited to see this representation, given our investment thesis in investing in highly technical immigrant founders building breakthrough companies. (Quick stats about Foothill Ventures — 85% of our portfolio companies are immigrant-led teams, and 75% have at least one PhD co-founder. And we also wrote a piece about PhD founders back in 2020 — “Should VCs bet on PhD founders? ”)
Geographically, there is a high concentration centered around Cambridge, Massachusetts, with 11 recipients currently working in that area. After Cambridge, 5 winners are located in Southern California, split between Los Angeles and San Diego, while 3 recipients are based in the New York metropolitan area. Surprisingly, despite the Bay Area’s reputation as a tech hub, only 2 winners are located in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Finally, examining subject areas, the most represented are healthcare, climate technologies, and space tech. But awardees’ work stretches across quantum computing, robotics, genetics, AI, satellite imagery and numerous other fields making an impact.
P.S. a fun counter to the “science nerd” stereotype— Rachel Huang, a material scientist working on revolutionary non-flammable electrolyte for lithium batteries, has “Stand-up comedian” listed under her Linkedin profile. Maybe developing a killer new material and killer great comedy shows draw on more of the same creative juices than we realize!
Foothill Ventures is a $200M seed-stage technology firm. We back technical founders across software, life sciences, and frontier technologies.
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Questions, thoughts, reflections? Let us know in the comments below. We’re always looking for great entrepreneurs and early-stage ideas, and we’re always interested in having a discussion about venture, technology, and anything related. To see more about Foothill Ventures, please visit our website: foothill.ventures.
