Korean universities lag international peers in nurturing entrepreneurs

The prestigious Seoul National University was the only university in South Korea to rank among the top 100 universities in terms of producing future entrepreneurs as evaluated by the Seattle-based global market research firm PitchBook Data, Inc.

The annual university ranking compares schools by tallying up the number of alumni entrepreneurs who have founded venture capital-backed companies. The rankings are powered by PitchBook data and are based on an analysis of more than 144,000 VC-backed founders, according to the company.

Those who graduated from Stanford University in California topped both the undergraduate and graduate lists. 

UC Berkeley, another well-renowned university in California, took the second spot for undergraduate programs, and Harvard University was second among MBA and other graduate programs. 

Outside the United States, Israeli universities Tel Aviv University and Technion are among the highest-ranking undergraduate programs. Cambridge and Oxford in the United Kingdom made the top 10 in the graduate list.

Among the undergraduate programs, Seoul National University (SNU) ranked 82nd by producing 182 entrepreneurs. 

Founder and CEO of Viva Republica Inc. Lee Seung-gun, founder of Moloco Inc. Ahn Ikkjin, and co-founder and CEO of Green Lab Shin Sang-hoon are graduates of the university. 

SNU ranked seventy-fourth place when judging by the number of founders who attended its graduate program with 176 startup founders.

MORE UNICORNS

Korea ranked 10th in the number of unicorns, according to US data company CB Insights, which calculated there are 15 such startups in the country.

The US took first place with 628 unicorns, followed by China with 174. India trailed with 68.

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups, however, has a different category for a unicorn due to the fluctuating won-to-dollar exchange rate. 

Seoul says there are 23 unicorn startups in Korea as of the early half of this year. 

SEOUL STARTUP ECOSYSTEM

The Startup Genome Report for this year ranked Seoul at the No. 10 spot in the Global Startup Ecosystem Report published in June. This is as high as Seoul has gotten on the list so far. 

The San Francisco-based private innovation policy advisory and research firm has been publishing the annual report since 2012. 

Back in 2019, Seoul ranked outside of the list of top 30 cities for entrepreneurs but rose to 20th place in 2020 and to 16th place in 2021. 

Not surprisingly, Silicon Valley ranked first, followed by New York City and London which jointly ranked second place.

Boston followed to take fourth place and Beijing took the fifth spot.

Write to Joo Wan Kim at kjwan@hankyung.com
Jee Abbey Lee edited this article.