From AI to quantum computing, University of Toronto graduates are shaking up existing industries - and forging brand new ones - by launching and scaling high-impact startup companies in Canada and around the world.
Their collective impact is captured in a recent ranking by Pitchbook , which named U of T Canada's top university for producing venture-backed entrepreneurs and 17th in the world for producing undergraduate alumni founders.
The Seattle-based financial data and research company's annual ranking draws on a global database of venture capital and startup activity to rank the world's top 100 universities based on the number of alumni who raised venture capital in the last decade.
"The incredible accomplishments of our alumni founders demonstrate how the resources, networks and expertise available at the University of Toronto are building a culture of entrepreneurship that turns ideas into impact," said Leah Cowen, U of T's vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives.
"These ventures create jobs, draw investment and deliver solutions in Canada and beyond."
The 2025 edition of the Pitchbook ranking analyzed more than 173,000 entrepreneurs to rank universities' alumni at the undergraduate, graduate and MBA levels, along with separate lists for female founders .
U of T rose eight spots from last year to place 17th globally on the undergraduate alumni list - and eighth among public institutions globally. The university also performed strongly in the graduate and MBA alumni categories, placing 25th and 36th in the world, respectively.
Female founders were a particular bright spot. U of T ranked 15th worldwide for undergraduate female founders and 25th for graduate female founders - again leading the country in both measures.
Four other Canadian institutions joined U of T in the top 50 for undergraduate alumni entrepreneurs: University of Waterloo (18th), McGill University (22nd), Western University (40th) and University of British Columbia (44th).
Globally, the top five undergraduate spots went to the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Because companies can have multiple founders - and founders can have attended more than one school - the same entrepreneur may be counted toward the totals of multiple institutions.
PitchBook's tally of alumni founders only captures one facet of U of T's broader entrepreneurial ecosystem. Beyond alumni ventures financed in other ways, the university also fuels student startups, faculty-led companies and spin-offs of U of T intellectual property.
U of T's strong performance in the Pitchbook ranking was echoed in a separate ranking by Fast Company, which placed U of T 21st in its global Ignition Schools 2025 list - the second time in two years that U of T has been ranked number one in Canada by the U.S. business magazine. That ranking is based on an evaluation of research, patents and number of startups formed, as well as Pitchbook data about alumni and venture capital activity.
Altogether, entrepreneurs from the U of T community have launched more than 1,500 venture-backed startups, raising more than $14 billion and creating more than 20,000 jobs in the past five years alone, according to figures compiled by U of T Entrepreneurship.
Among the ventures contributing to this momentum are Waabi, an autonomous driving company founded by Raquel Urtasun, a professor of computer science, and Xanadu, a quantum computing firm launched by former U of T postdoctoral researcher Christian Weedbrook.
The success of these and other companies reflects U of T's growing strength in fields such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing and other emerging technologies, said Jon French, director of U of T Entrepreneurship.
Alumni who worked with luminaries like Geoffrey Hinton, University Professor emeritus of computer science and recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics , have gone on to launch a new generation of AI companies, French added, helping establish Toronto as a hub for cutting-edge research and commercialization. That includes Cohere, an AI startup co-founded by U of T alumni Aidan Gomez, Nick Frosst and Ivan Zhang, that raised $500 million in August .
At the same time, many entrepreneurial alumni are paying it forward - from gifts that strengthen campus accelerators to supporting the next wave of innovators and entrepreneurs - ensuring that today's students and researchers have the supports and resources to take their ideas from classrooms and labs to commercialization.
"We have a 'no wrong door' philosophy," French said. "It doesn't matter what you study or where you study, or what your background is. There are access points across the University of Toronto because of the breadth and depth in research domain expertise and the inclusive nature of our community."
