Cornell jumped two spots to #4 in the new Pitchbook rankings of entrepreneurial universities, an honor based on the number of founders who have raised venture capital in the last 10 years. It also ranked #4 for female founders.

“Cornell is known to be a place where students come to pursue entrepreneurial endeavors and it shows in these rankings,” said Zach Shulman ’87 J.D. ‘90, director of Entrepreneurship at Cornell. “These rankings are based on outputs not inputs, factors like founders and venture capital raised, and they’re very thorough.”

In honor of that milestone and the creation of a new position: vice provost for entrepreneurship, innovation and external engagement, the Startup Cornell podcast this month features a conversation with Shulman and Matt Marx, the Bruce F. Failing, Sr. Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, who was recently named to the new vice provost position. The pair talk about the growing ecosystem of entrepreneurship across the campus and some exciting plans they have for the future.

“We’ve been in the top 10 for a long time, but this year we beat MIT for the first time ever and we’re right on the heels of Harvard,” Marx said. “Whoever thinks we aren’t an elite entrepreneurship university is wrong. And we’re doing it against all odds. While Ithaca has many small startups, it clearly lacks big tech and an abundance of venture capital, putting Cornell at a clear disadvantage.”

Entrepreneurship at Cornell celebrated the start of the semester with a Sept. 3 kickoff event at eHub in Collegetown, with more than 400 students attending. The event featured 25 tables with entrepreneurship-related resources, clubs and groups and a student business pitch contest. The winner, Noel Walker Blackwell ’28, earned an automatic spot in this year’s eLab cohort, the student business accelerator that’s a collaboration between Student Agencies Foundation and Entrepreneurship at Cornell. eLab accepts teams each fall for a yearlong intensive business acceleration experience. 

The Startup Cornell podcast features interviews with Cornell entrepreneurs, who tell their stories of successes and failures and offer actionable advice for building and growing a business. It’s available on the Entrepreneurship at Cornell website, as well as Apple podcasts,  Spotify and Soundcloud.