Which Swedish Universities Create the Most Successful Entrepreneurs?
Stockholm Universities Dominate the Swedish Startup Scene
- 55% of startup founders graduated from universities in Stockholm
- KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm School of Economics, and Lund University are the top 3 universities from which founders graduated.
- 22% of founders started their company during their time at university or as a recent graduate (<1 year out)
- VCs cluster in Stockholm.
There is no doubt that Sweden has an extraordinary ability of creating world class startups. Stockholm seems to be the center of it all and has been referred to as the unicorn factory in recent years following the incredible output. We are particularly interested in where these founders are coming from and if they started their companies during their time as a student or recent graduate (< 1 year). Having looked at the top 60 startups in Sweden based on articles and the Crunchbase ranking, we have accumulated data on which universities create the most entrepreneurs.
It is clear that Stockholm is the center of the startup ecosystem of Sweden having created 59 founders out of 107 that we looked at, accounting for 55% of the total. Stockholm is the place to be for a Venture Capital firm which is why we see VCs cluster in the area.
We believe there are two main reasons as to why certain universities create more entrepreneurs than others.
- The university is known for something that attracts future entrepreneurs to the university. This could be:
- Great entrepreneurs graduated from the university.
- The school encourages entrepreneurship and has established support functions that aid the company-building process.
- The university has a good reputation and has created an environment that attracts smart, innovative people.
2. The environment surrounding the university is rich in capital and mentorship, enabling the crucial combination of a great idea and hardcore execution.
Furthermore, we looked at whether the founders started their companies while still at university. We cross checked the dates of their time at university and the founding date of their company and marked a ‘Yes’ if they were still studying or were less than a year out.
Student founders are not as uncommon as one would think. It is a viable path to take if a great opportunity is presented. However, we do believe that the potential for student founders is largely untapped. The entrepreneurial path messes with universities’ placement rates and is also perceived as a risky endeavor, which it undeniable could be. On the other hand, it could be substantially de-risked if there was more support on campus; if founders had somewhere to go for advice, funding, and mentorship. The potential on campus is large, and there is a gap. If we could back entrepreneurs now rather than later, Sweden could produce even more…
Note on the data:
The data was compiled by looking at founders LinkedIn page to find out when and where they studied. What should be noted is that not every founder had this information available; they were left out of the dataset. The companies chosen were mainly picked out of the Swedish Startups Crunchbase ranking which can be found here but we also included some the big ones that were not on this list. Furthermore, not every Swedish startup on this list had founders that went to Swedish universities but most of them did. The data set is not the cleanest, but it is still indicative of where the entrepreneurial mindset is the most prevalent.
If you want to take a look at the whole dataset or have any comments, questions, or just want to chat, do not hesitate to reach out to Lukasmalmberg12@gmail.com.
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