Oxbridge is a US unicorn factory

Ilya StrebulaevProfessor at Stanford GSB | Studying how VC and PE actually work

Britain educates unicorn founders — and many of them build in America. 144 founders of US unicorns earned a degree in the UK, making it the third-largest foreign source of founder talent after India (189) and Israel (166). Where in the UK? Oxford and Cambridge are tied at exactly 33 founders each. Together, the two produced more US unicorn founders than the next twelve British universities combined. King’s College London and the University of London follow with 6 each; LSE, Imperial, Birmingham, and Edinburgh with 5. The UK has a strong unicorn ecosystem of its own — 155 unicorns, or 2.2 per million people, placing it among the top 10 countries in the world by unicorn density. What this chart shows is something else: on top of that, British universities are a major educational launchpad for companies built in the United States. Talent trained in one country keeps creating value in another. …