UC Berkeley maintains its spot as the world’s top producer of startups and founders

For the fourth year in a row, UC Berkeley graduates have founded more venture-backed companies than undergraduate alumni from any other university in the world, according to the 2026 PitchBook university rankings.

The rankings, released Tuesday (Sept. 1), again placed Berkeley at No. 1 for the number of venture-backed startups founded by undergraduate alumni, with 2,155 companies founded, and the number of founders, with 2,380 undergraduate alumni going on to found companies. PitchBook also reported that no other university has more female graduates who found companies than Berkeley, at 345.

“Berkeley has always been a place where people chart their own course,” Chancellor Rich Lyons said. “When you bring together that ethos with world-class research and a devotion to the public good, great things happen. Four years at the top of this ranking is a measure of that, but what makes me truly proud is knowing that our graduates are out there as bold leaders building companies that advance society and change lives.”

PitchBook, a data provider for private and public equity markets, annually ranks the world’s best universities for producing startup founders. In claiming the top spots across multiple categories, Berkeley again bested Stanford, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the annual rankings.

Stanford came in second in the overall rankings, which evaluate startups founded by undergraduate alumni that received a first round of venture funding in the past 10 years. Harvard, Cornell and MIT rounded out the top five.

“Four years at the top doesn’t just happen,” said Darren Cooke, the campus’s chief innovation and entrepreneurship officer. “Berkeley has built something rare, a place that empowers our community to turn their big ideas into meaningful societal and economic impact.”

The annual rankings follow a report earlier this year that sought to quantify the economic impacts from the campus’s array of innovation and entrepreneurship enterprises. Researchers found that campus-affiliated startups support more than 500 high-wage jobs in the city of Berkeley, with an average salary of $216,000. The collective impact was powerful: 182 local startups generated more than $300 million in regional value across Alameda County and approximately $200 million in the city of Berkeley alone.

The report comes amid a construction boom that will further expand Berkeley’s innovation footprint. On the western edge of campus, construction is well underway for the Bakar Labs for Energy & Materials, a new facility for research focused on clean energy, advanced manufacturing technologies and energy-efficient transportation. A new home for the Innovative Genomics Institute and Bakar Labs is being developed nearby to advance health and agricultural applications of genome editing technology. And the in-development Berkeley Air and Space Center at Moffett Field will further supercharge innovation for years to come.

“Developing a culture of innovation isn’t just about starting lots of new companies,” Cooke said. “It’s about equipping future leaders to build scalable ventures that drive the economy and improve human lives.”