Who Gets Venture Capital Funding?

Within the field of finance, perhaps nothing is more intriguing and interesting than a startup. In fact, HBO created a hit TV show called 'Silicon Valley' in which a genius but shy developer creates a music app called Pied Piper. Once the app was discovered to contain a revolutionary data compression algorithm, venture capital firms flocked to invest in the new startup as its uses extend way beyond a simple music app. The fictional company on HBO made it appear to be easy to land funding from venture capitalists. So how hard is it in reality? According to

investors poured $63.3 billion into startups in 2015 but this figure is on pace to drop around 25 percent in 2016. Here is a sample of data collected by Bloomberg that offers a unique view into what it takes to secure financing. The publication examined 890 startups that were founded from 2009 to 2015 and received at least $20 million in venture capital or other financing. Here is a list of some of the most notable facts. 1. 93 percent of all startups were founded by men and South San Francisco had the highest ratio of women founders at 16.1 percent. 2. 94 percent of company owners did not attend college or dropped out. 3. Internet companies had the largest number of dropout founders at 9.3 percent but all pharma and biotech startup owners completed college with more than 50 percent obtaining a PhD. 4. The top international undergard schools consist of the Indian Institute of Technology , Bombay (14 companies), Israel's Hebrew University of Jerusalem (12 companies) followed by the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (12 companies). 5. Some startups were acquired by "bigger fish" in multi-billion deals such as

's $18 billion acquisition of WhatsApp and

's $3.2 billion acquisition of Nest. 6. Other startups fail while many other pursue an initial public offering. However, Bloomberg's data showed that most of the IPOs are in the biotechnology sector and most of those have underperformed the sector's broader index since going public.