StartupBR: Higher Education's Influence on Social Networks and Entrepreneurship in Brazil

Abstract: Developing and middle-income countries increasingly empha-size higher education and entrepreneurship in their long-term develop-ment strategy. Our work focuses on the influence of higher education institutions (HEIs) on startup ecosystems in Brazil, an emerging economy. First, we describe regional variability in entrepreneurial network characteristics. Then we examine the influence of elite HEIs in economic hubs on entrepreneur networks. Second, we investigate the influence ofthe academic trajectories of startup founders, including their courses of study and HEIs of origin, on the fundraising capacity of startups. Given the growing capability of social media databases such as Crunchbase and LinkedIn to provide startup and individual-level data, we draw on computational methods to mine data for social network analysis. We find that HEI quality and the maturity of the ecosystem influence startup success. Our network analysis illustrates that elite HEIs have powerful influences on local entrepreneur ecosystems. Surprisingly, while the most nationally prestigious HEIs in the South and Southeast have the longest geographical reach, their network influence still remains local.