Open Access Journal Article

From degrees to dollars: Exploring the link between elite education and startup funding

by Alfredo Molinas a, b,*
a
Yale University, New Haven, USA
b
Institut Européen d'Administration des Affaires (INSEAD), Fontainebleau, France
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
JEA  2024, 51; 3(1), 51; https://doi.org/10.58567/jea03010008
Received: 31 May 2023 / Accepted: 14 July 2023 / Published Online: 15 March 2024
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Abstract

Many startups look for venture capital (VC) funding to grow their business. Anecdotally, in the Southeast Asia context, startup founders who attended an elite institute of higher learning have greater access to this kind of capital, but this has not been demonstrated quantitatively. We look at a dataset of nearly 800 startups in Southeast Asia who have received VC funding in the last 5 years and look for any correlation between the founder's educational background and the amount of VC funding received. We find that founders who have obtained a postgraduate degree from an elite university receive significantly more VC funding than those who graduated from other universities. Furthermore, this effect is only seen at later stages of funding, not at the seed stage. Potential reasons for this effect could be from stronger signaling of business acumen or technical skill; or better access to funding networks.

Keywords: Startups; venture capital; educational background;
Copyright: © 2024 by Molinas. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
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ACS Style
Molinas, A. From degrees to dollars: Exploring the link between elite education and startup funding. Journal of Economic Analysis, 2024, 3, 51. https://doi.org/10.58567/jea03010008
AMA Style
Molinas A. From degrees to dollars: Exploring the link between elite education and startup funding. Journal of Economic Analysis; 2024, 3(1):51. https://doi.org/10.58567/jea03010008
Chicago/Turabian Style
Molinas, Alfredo 2024. "From degrees to dollars: Exploring the link between elite education and startup funding" Journal of Economic Analysis 3, no.1:51. https://doi.org/10.58567/jea03010008
APA style
Molinas, A. (2024). From degrees to dollars: Exploring the link between elite education and startup funding. Journal of Economic Analysis, 3(1), 51. https://doi.org/10.58567/jea03010008

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