👨‍🎓 Are some diplomas worth more than others?

What Jasiel Martin-Odoom learned looking at start-up CEOs' higher education in Africa

This week’s article is brought to you by Jasiel Martin-Odoom, as part of our Guest Post series. For more content from him, follow him on Twitter and Linkedin.

« If you have been following my twitter for awhile, you know I can get very enthusiastic about the need for more research on the archetype of a successful founder in Africa. When the Africa: The Big Deal team asked me to prepare a guest post, I decided to look at one of the archetypes of a successful founder raising money in Africa: educational background. Diving into their database, I took a look at all announced larger ($1m+) equity fundraisings (i.e. excluding M&A exits, debt financings, & grants / non-dilutive capital). And an interesting picture begun to emerge. Today’s chart shows data by region, the top countries (where at least 10 CEOs studied), and top universities (where at least 10 CEOs studied). While the US and the UK top the list if we look at countries, Africa is where the largest number of CEOs have gotten their highest/latest degree from (232 out of 603, 38%), followed by Europe (183) and North America (166). Most of the CEOs who have studied in Africa have studied in one of the Big Four: Egypt, South Africa, Nigeria or Kenya (91%, 212 out of 232). For investors and ecosystem stakeholders in Africa alike, there has never been a better time to back more founders in Africa educated in African universities.

However, a deeper look at the breakdown of universities with at least 5 CEOs that raised funding in Africa tells an interesting story. 37% of CEOs (224 out of 604) come from just 7% of universities represented in the data. The oft hailed or decried (depending on who you ask) in-network investing that has become the mainstay of VC investing in other regions is evident here as well. With a small number of universities disproportionately producing founders that raised successfully, the question remains: If we had similar dataset of the educational background of investors backing founders in Africa, would we see these patterns repeat? Ilya Strebulaev et al. would probably say Yes. »

Thanks a lot Jasiel for this great analysis :) We’d looked at this data point in the past - which is captured for each deal in our database - but never in such detail. Some universities are definitely great at incubating future CEOs. But as Jasiel points out, it doesn’t mean that talent can’t come from anywhere, and definitely shouldn’t mean that investors only focus on CEOs who have studied in one of those. It is one of many indicators of the potential success of a CEO based on historical data; it is not an excuse to entrench existing biases. And the same goes for gender, nationality, ethnicity…