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idw - Informationsdienst
Wissenschaft
Where did most start-up founders study and research? A study by the Technical University of Munich (TUM), ETH Zurich and the University of Innsbruck shows a complete picture for Germany, Austria and Switzerland for the first time. In the past decade, most start-ups were founded by students, employees and alumni of TUM, ETH and the University of St. Gallen. If one looks at the number of start-ups in relation to the number of students, German private universities are the most successful. The sectors with the most start-ups are shaped by only a few universities.
Start-ups are considered an important factor for the success of a business location, and researchers and students are predestined to make new findings and technologies usable for the general public with companies. But which universities produce the most founders? Previous studies have been based on surveys on spin-offs in the narrower sense or comparatively generalized classifications. The Entrepreneurial Impact Study therefore investigated this question for the third time with an elaborate data analysis – for the first time for the entire DACH region, i.e. Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
The researchers from TUM, ETH and the University of Innsbruck compiled around 51,000 start-ups that were founded in the three countries between 2014 and 2024 from several databases such as Startupdetector, Austrian Startup Monitor and Startupticker. They then used LinkedIn, the Dealroom and Crunchbase databases and company websites to record the universities at which the founders had studied and, if applicable, worked. They took into account the different educational and career stages and assigned the start-ups to the various institutions if these had made a substantial contribution to the founding teams' careers.
Half of the top 10 are technical universities
The study, presented at the TUM Entrepreneurship Day today, shows that most start-ups were founded by students, employees and alumni of TUM (1,116), ETH Zurich (1,022) and the University of St. Gallen (845) during the survey period. Half of the ten most successful universities are technical universities. Six are German universities and four are from Switzerland. In terms of the number of start-ups that were able to obtain funding, Swiss universities ranked even better.
Looking at non-university research institutions in Germany, most start-ups were founded by employees and alumni of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (390). This is followed by the Helmholtz Association (143, excluding KIT), the Max Planck Society (122) and the Leibniz Association (71).
If the number of start-ups is compared to the number of students at the respective universities, WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management (350 start-ups per 1,000 students), HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management (206) and ESCP Business School Berlin (99) come out on top. German private universities occupy nine of the top ten places here. A similar picture emerges when the number of start-ups is compared to the number of employees at the universities.
“We see that the large technical universities contribute the most to start-up activity in the DACH region in absolute terms,” says study author Isabell Welpe, Professor of Strategy and Organization at TUM. “However, private business schools show that specialized programs, connections to the start-up ecosystem and efficient structures can greatly scale start-up dynamics.”
Nine universities shape the sectors with the most start-ups
Most start-ups in the DACH region are founded in the healthcare, enterprise software and financial technology sectors. It is notable that the healthcare sector accounts for an exceptionally high proportion of start-ups in Switzerland, at more than a quarter. In the ten sectors with the most start-ups, the top five places are held by only nine universities: École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), ETH Zurich, LMU Munich, RWTH Aachen, TU Berlin, TUM, University of St. Gallen, University of Zurich and WHU (in alphabetical order).
The study also examined which funded start-ups are deep tech innovators. ETH Zurich and TUM are in the lead here. “In both absolute and relative terms, there are a handful of universities that appear to be much more successful at promoting start-ups than the majority,” says study author Philipp Lemanczyk from the Chair of Strategy and Organization at TUM. "The challenge for academia and innovation locations is to enable and motivate students and researchers to found start-ups on a broad scale. For technology start-ups, the interdisciplinary combination of technology and business plays a major role in this process."
More than half of all German teams are male
Start-up teams in Switzerland and Austria are slightly more diverse than in Germany. While women are involved in 54% of start-up teams in Switzerland and 52% in Austria, this only applies to 42% of teams in Germany. The highest proportion of teams with female participation is found in the start-up teams from the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, the University of Frankfurt am Main and the University of Bern. The study was only able to identify 15 universities where more than half of the start-ups have at least one woman in the founding team.
Further information:
The study was funded by the Excellence Strategy of the German federal and state governments.
Philipp Lemanczyk
Technical University of Munich (TUM)
Chair of Strategy and Organization
Tel.: +49 89 289 24800
philipp.lemanczyk@tum.de
Lemanczyk, P., Tretow, I., Treffers, T., Füller, J., Wangenheim, F., Welpe, I.M. (2025). Entrepreneurial Impact of Academic Institutions 2025 – DACH-Ranking: Munich Impact Study.
https://www.entrepreneurshipranking.com
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