From Student to Founder: Germany’s Best Universities for Startups

Top German Universities by Number of Unicorn Startup Founders

From founders who had a degree from a German university, these universities stood out as the most popular:

  1. Technical University of Munich (TUM) – 14 founders
  2. Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich (LMU) – 14 founders
  3. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) – 6 founders
  4. WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management – 6 founders
  5. Heidelberg University – 3 founders
  6. FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg – 3 founders

Standout German Universities for Startup Output

Based on available data provided by the universities, we also discovered some of the German higher education institutions with the highest startup output.

Based on the number of startups founded in 2024*, these universities were among the top:

  1. Technical University of Munich (TUM) – 103 startups
  2. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) – 60 startups
  3. University of Cologne – 38 startups
  4. Saarland University – 30 startups
  5. Technical University of Dresden – 25 startups
  6. Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich – 17 startups
  7. University of Heidelberg -12 startups
  8. Technical University Berlin (TU Berlin) – 10 startups

*In case data for 2024 was not available, figures from the previous year or the average annual number of startups were used instead.