A summer of spreadsheets, startup research, and data wrangling may not sound like ‘school is over’, but that’s exactly what four high school kids have been through over the past few months as they analyze GeekWire. 200, a ranked index of Pacific Northwest startups that GeekWire has maintained since 2012.

The students were matched with UW Bothell School of Business dean, Sandeep Krishnamurthy, through SparkSIP, a Seattle-area nonprofit whose mission is to connect high school students with internship opportunities in companies, educational institutions and industry experts.

Sonali Vaid wanted information to develop his LLC and achieve his business goals. Kevin Do, a California resident, wanted to explore the startup ecosystem in another region. Raksha Zunnuru wanted to work with a group that brought different perspectives to a business related project. And Ben Epstein was ready to apply his interest in data science to find out what factors contribute to a company’s success.

The group has met weekly on Zoom and conducted a study of the best startups in the Pacific Northwest using the April update of the GeekWire 200 rankings, along with lists from previous years and other publicly available data.

Why did Krishnamurthy choose this project for his interns?

“High school students approach data analysis and research with fresh eyes,” he said. “They are able to come up with original ideas and take things in a different direction.”

Derived from our larger list of more than 1,300 tech startups headquartered in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and British Columbia, the GeekWire 200 ranking is generated using a weighted algorithm that takes into account social media subscriptions, approximate number of employees (via LinkedIn) and incoming web. connections.

The GeekWire 200 aims to showcase the region’s startup ecosystem and help identify businesses that are growing rapidly.

Here are some things to remember about the GeekWire 200 from Krishnamurthy’s group:

Low level of gender diversity

The study found:

• Only seven of the top 200 startups (or 3.5%) were founded entirely by women.
• Of those seven startups, one was ranked in the top 50, two were ranked between 50 and 100 and four were in the bottom half of the list.
• 28 startups (or 14%) had founding teams that included at least one woman. 172 of the top 200 startups (or 86%) have no female managers.

This data surprised all the students, who had previously estimated that 30% of the startups on the list were founded by women.

“As a woman looking to enter the startup environment in the future, I was hoping to find a higher representation of female CEOs and founders in the industry,” Zunnuru said.

“This statistic was disappointing to see,” added Vaid. “I sincerely hope that PNW’s innovation ecosystem will improve its gender diversity in the years to come. “

PitchBook recently reported that all female founding teams raised less than 2% of all venture capital dollars in the first half of 2021. Companies with at least one female founder made up 16%.

Large majority of well-educated founders

The study found:

• 388 of the 429 founders have undergraduate degrees, or about 90%.
• 42% of the founders had graduate degrees, including 15% of the founders with an MBA.
• There was no clear correlation between education level and starting rank.

These findings changed Do’s perspective: “I initially believed that the founders of the startups at the top of the top 200 list were more educated than those at the bottom,” he said.

“As an educator, I was also impressed with the level of education of startup leaders,” noted Krishnamurthy. “The narrative of dropping out of college that starts a business is vastly exaggerated and covers up some aberrant narratives. Most startups are run by well-trained people.

Higher ranked startups have higher investment amounts

The study found:

• Among the 25 top-ranked startups in the dataset, the average amount of funding was around $ 272 million.
• Startups ranked 26 to 50 had an average funding amount of around $ 95 million.
• Moving down the rankings in groups of 25, average funding continued to decline. The average funding for companies ranked 176-200 was around $ 24 million.

This finding is consistent with how the number of employees affects the GeekWire 200 ranking, and companies that raise venture capital often increase their workforce.

The “mind-boggling” funding amounts at the top of the list left a strong impression on the students.

“These results helped me realize that venture capital funding is very accessible for startups in this region and I now feel more confident to pursue my goal of entrepreneurship in PNW,” said Vaid.

Epstein also noted the impact of venture capital, saying, “Seeing the importance of tech companies and the importance of financing has particularly shaped my perspective on the type of organizations that are up front. -guarding of the ecosystem ”.

Future founders of startups?

The students who participated in the study entered the project with an interest in business and innovation. Now, after digging into the data, we asked each of them how that experience shaped their perception of the Pacific Northwest innovation system and their goals for the future.

Vaid: “I was under the impression that most of the startup innovations were happening in Silicon Valley when the PNW only had large multinational companies, like Amazon and Microsoft. However, after analyzing the GeekWire 200 list, I learned that we have a robust startup ecosystem in the PNW that spans a wide range of industries and has delivered breakthrough innovations.

Make: “Participating in this research has shown me that PNW’s entrepreneurial ecosystem is very strong, healthy and diverse. In the future, I hope to create my own successful start-up and contribute to the innovation ecosystem of where I live.

Zunnuru: “This experience introduced me to other rapidly growing areas of PNW’s innovation ecosystem, such as technology and aerospace, and dramatically changed my goals.

Epstein: “This project only increased my desire to get involved in a field involving either data science or business, because it allowed me to acquire new knowledge and see my work make a difference. .

See the full group report, methodology and other takeaways below.

GeekWire 200: A study of… by GeekWire