Harvard's 107 Private Unicorns Worth $393B!
Unpacking the Data Behind Harvard's 107 Private Unicorns
Join me on X (Twitter) @devontriplett21—more Harvard data to come. See you there!
Welcome back to Phoenix Fund Research! This week, I’m thrilled to share something special—after nearly four months and hundreds of hours of work, I’ve finally completed an analysis on the educational backgrounds of all 1,249 private unicorns, as identified by CB Insights and my ongoing research.
As always, thank you for following along. Your feedback, engagement, and sharing of Phoenix Fund Research means a lot to me. Together, we can continue to give Harvard the recognition it deserves as an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Let’s dive in.
Harvard’s 107 Private Unicorns Worth $393B 🚀
107 private unicorns?! Yep—that’s right. Harvard alumni, specifically Harvard College and Harvard Business School alumni, are behind a long list of incredible companies that are valued over $1B in private markets, including: Stripe, Rippling, Ramp, WHOOP, Devoted Health, Bloomreach, Upgrade, Shield AI, Devoted Health, and more.
Fun Facts About Harvard’s Private Unicorns 🦄
1 in 12 of all private unicorns have at least 1 Harvard founder
~13% of the value of all private unicorns is from Harvard-founded startups
37 (35%) are in the top 500 of most valuable private unicorns
~64% of Harvard’s private unicorn value was created by Harvard College alumni
~55% of Harvard’s private unicorns were founded by HBS alumni
Speak: Harvard’s Latest Unicorn Minted TODAY!
This morning, Connor Zwick (Harvard College) announced Speak's $78M Series C led by Accel at a $1B valuation! Harvard now has 108 private companies worth $1B+.
Speak is a language learning app that sets users on the path to fluency with the world’s most advanced AI tutor. Built on the core learning philosophy of getting users speaking out loud as much as possible, Speak's AI language-learning experience encourages dynamic two-way dialogue through personalized content and real-time speech recognition.
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