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Today’s number: 40 percent

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* Mark Harris, CEO of the Illinois Science & Technology Coalition, writing in the Sun-Times…

During the past five years, students and faculty at Illinois universities launched more than twice the number of startups, 942, than they did during the previous five years. It’s the largest volume of startup activity since we began tracking it in 2013.

Nearly three-quarters of those companies remain active, and of them, 81.3 percent, or 566, remain in Illinois, the highest level since we began collecting this data.

Capital raised by these startups also reached a new record in 2017: $877.5 million in the past five years. That is triple the total from 2010-14. […]

An estimated four in every 10 startups coming out of Illinois universities in the last five years have had a foreign-born founder or co-founder.

…Adding… The full report is here.

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:55 am

Comments

I wonder what the enrollment is like. Is 40% of all university students foreign? For some schools I’m sure it is, a quick google search tells me its right about there for UIUC (10k/44k), but on average throughout the state? I would assume overall enrollment is lower than 40%, and that foreign or potentially immigrant students disproportionately start businesses, but I don’t have those numbers.

Comment by Perrid Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 11:07 am
40% of all startups is a benefit from having foreign students, in addition to paying full tuition.

Comment by anon2 Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 11:09 am
Foreign students come with capitalization well beyond their tuition. Investment Capital likes that formula. Very much.

Comment by A guy Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 11:13 am
Sure does dovetail nicely with 1871

Comment by Henry Francis Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 11:13 am
Gee this sounds like good news. In Illinois.How can that be? Quick call GovJunk and have him trash the universities as soon as be is back.

Comment by Annonin' Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 11:18 am
No doubt this is positive news for our state.

And yet this happened in spite of the fact that under the Rauner Regime most of SBDC’s at our Community Colleges have been forced to close because of the lack of funding and the entrepreneurship aspects at our 4 year colleges are strained to meet the demand for their services and assistance.

Comment by illini Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 11:27 am
The first two sentences of that snippet make my head hurt. Together, they make no logical sense.

Comment by BigDoggie Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 11:43 am
==a quick google search tells me its right about there for UIUC (10k/44k), but on average throughout the state==

In what world is 23% “right about” 40%?

Comment by supplied_demand Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 12:14 pm
And UIUC’s 23% is almost certainly the highest number in the state. The other doctoral institutions likely come in behind that, and then the master’s institutions.

Comment by LXB Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 12:21 pm
So this data has been collected since 2013, 5 years ago. So of course this is the highest number over a 5 year period. How can you compare it to the 5 years prior if you were collecting the data?

Comment by Rational thought Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 12:24 pm
To clarify, while we started tracking this data in 2013, universities provided data for 2009-2013 that year, and we have collected in 5 year increments since then. So this is based on roughly a decade of data.

Comment by Mark Harris Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 1:31 pm
–Nearly three-quarters of those companies remain active, and of them, 81.3 percent, or 566, remain in Illinois, the highest level since we began collecting this data.–

That’s a heckuva survial rate for startups. They must not have gotten the tronc/IPI/Rauner memos on the death spiral.

Or they were too busy building something and contributing to society to bother with that incessant whining.

–An estimated four in every 10 startups coming out of Illinois universities in the last five years have had a foreign-born founder or co-founder.–

Not a surprise to anyone with eyes that see. Immigrants have always been a major driving force in the American economy.

Comment by wordslinger Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 1:53 pm