The National University of Singapore (NUS) has been hailed as the country's top producer of successful startup founders. A recent study reveals that Singapore's local universities are competitive enough to rise above the nonstop influx of foreign startup companies into the country.
In a collaborative research study conducted by online shopping aggregator iPrice Group Sdn Bhd and venture capital firm Gobi Partners Inc on the educational background of more than 190 successful startup founders in Singapore, 40 of them come from NUS. Harvard University of Massachusetts and Stanford University of California follow with 9 and 7 founders, respectively.
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Some NUS alumni founders include Carousell's Siu Rui Quek, Lucas Ngoo and Marcus Tan, 99.co's Darius Cheung, Ruiwen Chua, Yan Phun and Saurabh Mandar, Razer's Min-Liang Tan, MoneySmart's Vinod Nair and Timothy Kua and honestbee's Timothy Tay and Jonathan Low.
Three more Singapore schools round up the top five. Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and INSEAD Singapore share the fourth place with six founders each followed by Singapore Management University with 4 founders.
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Based on the principles of entrepreneurship, subject startups for analysis are those that have obtained at least the Series A funding.
From the findings, iPrice Group notes that Singapore's higher education is a great groundwork for future company leaders.
"The quality of graduates our local universities produce is as competitive as the ones from international universities. Not to mention that NUS has produced more successful startup founders in Singapore than Harvard, Stanford and INSEAD combined".
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Meanwhile, the similar study also reveals that 112 of 150 bachelor holders among the startup founders finished non-tech degrees, such as engineering, economics and business.
