Which university produces the most start-ups?

A new study has looked at the top 500 German start-ups and listed which universities or colleges produce the most. The results stand out from other rankings.

Which university produces the most start-ups? The top five places are taken by TU Munich, LMU Munich, WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management, TU in Berlin and the University of Mannheim, according to the results of a study conducted by a team from TU Munich and investor Blockrocket. The study is based on the top 500 start-ups in Germany according to Crunchbase; in contrast to other studies, the ratio to the number of students was also taken into account. The Otto Beisheim School of Management took first place. 48 start-ups emerged from the university. ESCP Business School follows with 20 start-ups, and the European Business School Oestrich-Winkel holds third place with 18 start-ups.

The authors of the study emphasise that their research design differs decisively from other previous rankings in that they consider "not only key figures on absolute entrepreneurship performance (number of start-ups at the university) but also relative entrepreneurship performance (start-ups at the university in relation to the number of students)". All founders of the Top 500 in Germany are included. This also means that universities such as the University of Bremen or RWTH Aachen, which have always taken first place in rankings up to now, are not included in the top ten of the study.

The team wants to publish further rankings in the future and take a closer look at diversity, type of start-up, industries, deeptech versus low-tech, migration flows of founders from universities and other aspects.