A Data-Driven Look at Founder Traits & Outcomes

In 2025, FoundersEdge partnered with Gravitate AI, to work on a complementary study to our Founder Index to analyze which founder background traits meaningfully correlate with company success. Using LinkedIn profile data from 783 recent CEO founders, we analyzed 9 founder traits to assess their correlation with momentum and outcomes.

We grouped founders into three outcome-based cohorts: low momentum, high momentum, and exited founders. While imperfect, these cohorts allowed us to compare a large, recent sample of founders who were able to build momentum, raise follow-on capital, or achieve liquidity, versus those who stalled early.

Our findings challenge several widely held assumptions about what makes a “good” founder. Many traits frequently used as filters showed limited or no signal on their own, while a smaller set only became meaningful when evaluated together. The data reinforces the importance of multi-factor evaluation rather than reliance on any single founder characteristic.

This research directly informs how we source, evaluate, and support founders at FoundersEdge. We believe data and founder-first partnership work best together, and that understanding what actually drives outcomes leads to better decisions for founders and investors alike.

Study Design and Founder Cohorts

We analyzed LinkedIn profiles of 783 CEO founders across three cohorts:

• Low Momentum Founders: CEOs of companies founded between 2019 and 2023 that raised $100K or less, did not raise a second round, and in many cases are now inactive or shut down in 2025.

• High Momentum Founders: CEOs of companies founded during or after 2019 that raised between $0.5M and $5M in their first financing, raised a subsequent round greater than $2M during 2024 to 2025, and demonstrated at least a $1M increase between first and most recent financing. This group reflects founders who progressed from pre-seed into a larger seed round.

• Exited Founders: CEOs of companies founded during or after 2019 whose last financing event was an acquisition or IPO, with a last known valuation of $30M or more.

These cohorts are directional rather than definitive. The goal was not to label founders as successes or failures, but to compare recent, comparable founder paths at scale.

Because we used venture funding as an input to the study, there is some inherent bias for what venture investors have valued previously, as well as skews towards the types of companies more prone to receive venture funding - high tech and scalable businesses which tend to leave out non-scalable, service-based business owners.

9 Traits Analyzed

We evaluated nine CEO founder experience traits commonly referenced in early-stage investing:

1. MBA education

2. Technical education (software, computer science, or equivalent)

3. Technical expertise (rated 1 to 5)

4. Business development exposure (rated 1 to 5)

5. Prior founder experience

6. Number of prior exits

7. Total years of professional experience

8. Average tenure in roles (a proxy for sticking with things)

9. Prestigious education (top 50 global universities)

Results were aggregated at the cohort level to identify directional differences across groups.

Founder Traits That Show Real Signal

Several themes emerged from the data:

Technical background showed the strongest signal.

High momentum founders were meaningfully more technical than low momentum founders, with average technical expertise scores of 3.8 vs. 3.5 (out of 5), while exited founders ranked highest at 3.92. 

This is reinforced when looking at technical education: only 12.8% of low momentum founders had a software engineering or computer science background, compared to 26.6% of high momentum founders and 33.3% of exited founders. Together, these results suggest that technical fluency or the ability to deeply engage with technical systems is a meaningful advantage at the pre-seed stage.

MBAs were not predictive of success.

MBA representation declined as outcomes improved. Low momentum founders had the highest MBA penetration at 18.9%, compared to 13.4% for high momentum founders and just 7.8% for exited founders. This suggests formal business credentials alone are not predictive of early-stage success and having a technical background better sets you up for success.

Experience Shows Clear Positive Signal

Exited founders were 44% more likely to have founded a company before, with 70.6% having prior founder experience compared to ~49% for both low and high momentum founders. Business development exposure also increased with outcomes, rising from 3.83 (low momentum) to 4.02 (exited), highlighting the importance of CEOs who can translate product into revenue and distribution.

Exited founders also entered their successful ventures with longer professional experience, averaging 14.7 years in the workforce versus 12.4 for low momentum and 11.8 for high momentum founders. Together, these results suggest that prior founding, commercial execution skills, and broader operating experience compound into stronger outcomes.

Prestige Correlates With Fundraising, Not Outcomes

Prestigious education showed mixed signal across cohorts. High momentum founders had the highest representation from top-ranked universities at 52.7%, compared to 41.2% for exited founders and 32.8% for low momentum founders. This suggests elite educational backgrounds may help with early fundraising momentum, but do not translate as cleanly into exits. This likely reflects historical bias in venture capital, where elite degrees have been stereotypically valued.

Attributes With Inconclusive Signal

Two attributes did not show reliable directional signal due to data quality limitations and measurement challenges.

Number of exits.

Exited founders averaged 0.78 prior exits, lower than the expected >1.0 for an exited cohort. This likely reflects incomplete LinkedIn data, as many founders do not update profiles to reflect acquisitions or use inconsistent naming conventions. As a result, exit history is undercounted and should be treated as incomplete.

“Stick with things” (average tenure)

Exited founders had the longest average tenure (4.0 years), followed by low momentum (3.7) and high momentum founders (3.2). This non-linear pattern does not show clear association with outcomes. Inconsistent role reporting on LinkedIn makes tenure difficult to measure reliably and would require deeper normalization to draw confident conclusions.

What This Means for Our Investing Approach

The takeaway is not that any single founder trait predicts success. It is that over-reliance on surface-level signals can lead investors to overweight characteristics that feel comforting rather than predictive.

At FoundersEdge, we use research like this to inform a more nuanced evaluation framework. We look for founders who combine technical chops, demonstrated follow-through, and the ability to translate insight into execution. We also remain cautious about filtering too early on credentials that show limited correlation with outcomes.

This study reinforces our belief that early conviction should be grounded in founder-level outcome data and informed by direct work with founders, not stereotypical bias.