The 100 Highest-Funded MBA Startups Of 2024

23 MBA STARTUPS WERE CO-FOUNDED BY WOMEN

While the number of companies with at least one female MBA founder fell slightly in 2024, the fifth highest-funded startup on the list was co-founded by a woman. Ajaib, co-founded by Stanford GSB MBAs Yada Piyajomkwan and Anderson Sumarli in 2019, has raised $245 million to date. The zero-commission investing platform for millennial investors in Indonesia earned its founders a place on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Asia list in 2020.

Overall, 23 MBA startups on our top 100 list were founded or co-founded by women in 2024 compared to 25 in 2023 and 26 in 2022. Together, the companies have raised $756.5 million.

After Ajaib, the four highest funded MBA startups with women co-founders include:

• Foodology (No. 16) is a foodtech company founded by Harvard Business School MBA Daniela Izquierdo with her classmate Juan Azuero. It provides standalone “cloud” kitchens without the capital- and labor-intensive dining areas along with a commerce platform for food delivery businesses. It has raised $86.5 million to date.
• Osmind (No. 20) was founded in 2020 by Lucia Huang of Stanford Graduate School of Business. The electronic health record for mental health providers aids in the administration, monitoring, and analyzing the use of innovative psychiatric medications and treatments. The company has raised $57.2 million in four funding rounds.
• Kocomo (No. 21) is a real estate startup founded by Harvard Business School MBAs Graciela Arango and Euan Cassie in 2021. It has raised $56 million to date.
• BenePass (No. 31) is another MBA startup founded by a Stanford GSB woman, Jaclyn Chen. It has raised $34.70 to date, up $20 million from this time last year. The fintech platform helps employers deliver and manage employee benefits.

Last year, Patsalis returned to NYU Stern, not as a student but as a founder. She was accepted into fall 2023 cohort of Stern’s Endless Frontier Labs – an early-stage startup accelerator that pairs massively scalable science and tech startups with current MBA students as well as the university’s extensive network of scientists, investors, and business leaders that advise and mentor them.

“The program’s organization really helped our team stay accountable with deliverables,” Patsalis says. “Through EFL, we found our lead investor and co-investors, and were able to close our seed round within three months. This also meant that we were able to get matching funds from the government through FedTech.”

She also connected with the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute’s Leslie eLab and NYU Innovation Venture Fund where she met incredible people who offered a tremendous amount of knowledge and advice.

DKS plans to expand its team in the coming year while automating its manual processes by designing a custom manufacturing robot to scale up production. Its goal is to have a product in the market and sell units to the U.S. Air Force by Q3 2025.

“Finding the right investors can be extremely difficult for any startup, and we are very lucky to have access to Stern’s connections,” she tells P&Q.

LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL’S FINTECH POWER

With its world-renowned finance chops, it’s not so surprising that London Business School’s highest funded startup from our list – and the second highest earner overall – is a fintech darling. Tamara has raised $955.60 to date and has been called Saudi Arabia’s first fintech unicorn.

Khedair tells P&Q that many of LBS’ start-ups are in fintech, reflecting the business and finance backgrounds of many of its students. But, certainly not all startups.

“LBS-founded ventures represent a diverse range of industries beyond fintech, often based on another area of interest that the students may have which often steers them away from their historic career path to explore pastures new,” she says.

The school’s entrepreneurial approach caters to the many ways MBAs want to engage in the space – whether it’s starting a venture, joining a high-growth startup, leading innovation at an established company, pursuing a career in private capital, or even growing their own family business. MBAs can tailor a wide and expanding range of entrepreneurial courses to their interests while learning the entire cycle of business creation.

“Increasingly, LBS MBA students want to join early-stage tech-based businesses and partner with researchers to bring great technologies to market. Likewise, many researchers want to commercialise their research and are looking for partners with the business skills to make this happen,” Khedair says.

The school recently launched a new course, Innovation to Market (I2M), which builds teams of researchers and MBAs to commercialize innovative technologies. And last academic year, it launched Spark, a networking event series to connect LBS’ MBAs and alumni with tech-focussed students from other leading universities. The school also supports student-led competitions and challenges while offering a host of experiential resources and initiatives outside the lecture hall.

MBA STARTUPS WITH IMPACT

One notable trend Khedair has noticed in LBS founders is an increasing desire to add purpose to their business plans. They are prioritizing sustainability and social responsibility alongside long-term value.

Many new LBS startups focus on reducing environmental footprints, accelerating the transition to clean energy, and promoting circular economies. Others embed DEI principles in their mission and values while still others work to benefit underserved communities and promote social justice.

“For many the focus seems to have definitely shifted from purely financial goals to creating businesses that generate positive social and environmental outcomes alongside profitability, hopefully fueling a better future for us all,” she says.

Click through the full list of 2024’s 100 highest funded MBA startups in the pages that follow.