German company exits: These universities produce the most successful founders
WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management is considered a successful incubator for founders. However, it does not come out on top in the latest evaluation by Gisma University of Applied Sciences. As in 2024, a Munich university is once again at the top of the data set on exit founders from the DACH region in 2025, this time the Technical University of Munich with 34 founders. There is also a clear pattern in the subjects studied: Computer science, business administration, and related business-related disciplines are particularly well represented. The master’s degree is the most frequently recorded academic degree.
Technical University of Munich clearly leads the ranking
For the study, 196 exit companies from the DACH region were evaluated, i.e., start-ups that have been sold, taken over, or gone public. A total of 436 founders were identified. The Technical University of Munich is the most frequently represented with 34 founders. In second place is Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich with 15, followed by RWTH Aachen University with ten.
Behind them are the University of St. Gallen with nine and the Technical University of Berlin, the University of Münster, and the University of Cologne with eight founders each. The Vienna University of Economics and Business is also strongly represented with seven mentions. Harvard Business School, Humboldt University of Berlin, and the University of Paderborn each have six, while ETH Zurich, Freie Universität Berlin, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Wedel University of Applied Sciences, Vienna University of Technology, and WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management each have five founders.
With a combined total of 49 founders, the Technical University of Munich and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich account for more than nine percent of the individuals identified in the data set.
Computer science ahead of business administration and business informatics
The subjects studied also show a clear focus on technology and business-related disciplines. Computer science is the most frequently represented subject with 36 mentions. This is followed by business administration with 33 mentions. In third place is business informatics with 25 mentions. This is followed by economics with 20 mentions and industrial engineering with 15 mentions. Business administration was recorded separately with 14 mentions, as international course names were not assigned to German subject categories across the board. As a result, the order of individual subjects may change slightly depending on how they are grouped.
Other frequently represented subjects are law with nine mentions and physics and economics with eight mentions each. Medicine, mathematics, psychology, electrical engineering, and international management are each represented five times.
Overall, the identified founders come from a wide range of different fields of study, from engineering and philosophy to health economics, journalism, and aerospace engineering.
The founder profile is clearly male-dominated
The analysis also shows a clear picture in terms of gender: of the 436 founders recorded, 390 were classified as male and 46 as female based on their first names. This corresponds to around 89.4 percent men and 10.6 percent women. The analysis of first names further underscores this picture: The most common names are Matthias (ten mentions), Daniel, Sebastian, and Thomas (nine each), as well as Andreas, Max, Michael, Philipp, and Stefan (eight each). Christoph also appears frequently, with seven mentions. Among the female first names, Julia is the most common with four mentions, followed by Katrin with three. Dagmar, Lisa, and Mona each appear twice.
The first names recorded also include 50 internationally influenced names. Names such as Amir and Nikolai appear twice each.
Master’s degrees are by far the most common
Master’s degrees are clearly the most common academic qualification recorded. 156 founders have a master’s degree. This is followed by bachelor’s degrees with 63 and diplomas with 48 mentions. No information on degrees was available for a further 48 people. Doctorates were recorded a total of 49 times, divided into 45 mentions as “Doctor” and 4 further entries with different spellings. In addition, there are five state examinations and one habilitation.
An advanced academic degree is particularly common among founders with exit success.
“The findings underline the critical role that technology- and management-oriented disciplines play in shaping the entrepreneurial trajectories of founders who achieve successful exits. In today’s rapidly evolving innovation landscape, the ability to combine analytical, digital, and business competencies is increasingly essential. This is why institutions such as Gisma University of Applied Sciences are deliberately integrating areas such as artificial intelligence, data science, and business administration within their programmes to prepare graduates for real-world entrepreneurial challenges.” says Sara Ramzani, Professor of Research and Quantitative Methods and vice president at Gisma University of Applied Sciences.
“At the same time, the analysis highlights a persistent gender imbalance within the start-up ecosystem, with women remaining significantly underrepresented. Addressing this gap requires a more proactive and systemic approach from higher education institutions, including early engagement, targeted support, and the creation of inclusive environments that empower more female talent to pursue entrepreneurial pathways. Strengthening diversity in entrepreneurship is not only a matter of equity but also a key driver of innovation, resilience, and long-term economic growth.”
About the study
The study evaluated 196 companies from the DACH region that had identified an exit. These include company sales, acquisitions, and IPOs. The basis was an overview from deutsche-startups.de from 2025, which was manually adjusted. Cases without an actual exit in the narrower sense were excluded, such as when companies themselves had taken over other companies without the founders generating exit proceeds.
Information on founders, universities, fields of study, and degrees was primarily researched via LinkedIn and supplemented by other public online sources. The highest academic degree was recorded in each case; non-academic training and discontinued courses of study were not taken into account. Multiple equivalent academic degrees held by one person were recorded individually.
For better comparability, courses of study were partially standardized. However, international designations such as “business administration” remained separate if it was not possible to clearly assign them to German categories. As a result, the ranking of individual subjects may change depending on the categorization.
As the study is based on publicly available information, it was not possible to collect all data in full. For 67 founders, no university could be identified, for 25 no field of study, and for 48 no degree. In addition, some of the data is based on information from publicly available profiles and thus on self-reported information that could not always be independently verified. The evaluation therefore does not claim to be complete or officially verified, but rather reflects publicly verifiable educational biographies in the sample examined. In addition, the term “startup” is not uniformly defined, which is why older companies are also included in the data set.