TIME Lists 80 Top U.S. Incubators as 21 Show University Ties
Updated
Updated · Poets&Quants · Aug 24
TIME Lists 80 Top U.S. Incubators as 21 Show University Ties
3 articles · Updated · Poets&Quants · Aug 24
Summary
Twenty-one of TIME’s inaugural 80 Best Incubators and Accelerators have university links, including five in the top 10, underscoring how campuses have become major startup pipelines.
No. 5 Northwestern’s Garage, No. 6 Harvard Innovation Labs and No. 7 Chicago Booth’s Polsky Center led the university cohort, offering founders access to investors, labs, competitions and cross-campus talent.
The Garage illustrates the model’s scale: it has backed more than 1,500 startups that raised over $1.6 billion, created 2,600 jobs and compete for a $175,000 VentureCat prize pool.
Harvard Innovation Labs says its founders have built more than 7,000 ventures and raised over $15 billion, while university-rooted but independent programs such as Stanford-affiliated StartX and MIT-created The Engine also made the list.
The ranking traces the model to NSF-backed university innovation centers in the 1970s and highlights its global spread through Creative Destruction Lab, founded at Toronto Rotman and now operating at schools including Washington Foster.