India, Sept. 22 -- India just pulled off something remarkable: Eight of its universities ranked highly on PitchBook's 2026 list of the world's top 100 institutions for producing venture-backed entrepreneurs. Seven are public institutions, including five IITs. From those five alone, came 2,705 entrepreneurs who founded 2,256 companies and raised more than $156 billion.

This is astonishing, because for decades, India's elite public universities were known for exams, academic hierarchy, and bureaucracy. Over the past decade, however, that culture has changed, and entrepreneurship has moved into the mainstream. The schools are now competing to commercialise research, work with industry, and produce students able to start businesses. This is ...