Successful founders in the Philippines did not study tech, says this research

To challenge the notion that startup founders should have a background in tech to build a startup, the iPrice Group conducted a focused study on SEA markets. The study seeks to determine if fields of study and level of education influence founders’ success.

In the Philippine startup scene, the results suggest that business and social sciences are the two most common fields of study among founders. And interestingly, most of them took their bachelor’s degree from the top four universities in the country then pursued a higher degree abroad.

Here’s how we did the study and the rest of the results:

Top-tier universities founders attended

After examining the educational backgrounds of 54 founders, we observed that founders usually attend top-tier universities. (Out of the 31 startup companies on the list, only seven of them made a successful exit: OLX, Chikka, Airborne Access, Netbooster, Xurpas, I-Remit, and Morphlabs.)

The top four universities in the Philippines, locally known as the “Big 4,” Ateneo De Manila University (Ateneo), De La Salle University (DLSU), University of Santo Tomas (UST), and University of the Philippines (UP), dominated the Top Six Universities List with a total of 32 founders.

Ateneo takes the lead with 12 founders, some of whom are Peter Cauton and Paulo de la Fuente (Storm Technologies), Myla Villanueva and Ray Espinosa (Wolfpac Mobile), Bansan Choa and Ben Tiu (I-Remit), and Nix Nolledo (Xurpas).

DLSU follows with nine founders. Raymond Racaza is the only founder in the list with two companies—Xurpas and Xeleb Technologies. Airborne Access’ Jay Fajardo is also one of the university’s notable alumni alongside Choa and Wilson Damarillo or Morphlabs.

UST ranks third with six founders. The most prominent is Alexandra Roxas of Chikka Asia.

UP is in fourth place with five founders. Some of them are Rappler’s Maria Ressa, OLX‘s RJ David, and Airborne Access’s Tony Abello.

For international universities, the New York University (NYU) tied with UST in the third place with six founders, and Harvard University placed fifth with three founders. Some founders who attended international universities are Level Up‘s Ben Colayco, Phil Cahiwat, and Syam Devineni (NYU), Morphlabs’ Yoram Heller (NYU), and Chikka Asia’s Dennis Mendiola (Harvard).

Other international schools that made it to the list with two founders each are University of Southern California, London School of Economics, Columbia University, and Santa Clara University.

Interestingly, most founders attended university more than once, attending another university that is also in the list.

Please see the infographic below and the annotation for more details.

Level of education

Local universities vs international universities

Most founders took non-tech degrees