Previous literature has documented that co-founders of innovative ventures often have shared work experience. Equally prevalent, yet under-researched, are teams that share an educational background. We theorize about the mechanisms behind shared-education teams, differentiating whether co-founders attended the same university (alumni) and whether they did so concurrently (schoolmates). Utilizing data on innovative Belgian start-ups, we find that alumni – apart from any shared work experience - are more likely to co-found, even more so if they were schoolmates. We also find that start-ups that reunite alumni are more likely to raise funding, with suggestive evidence of a further premium for teams of schoolmates. By demonstrating the impact of educational ties, we highlight the importance of looking beyond recent work experience to understand entrepreneurial team formation.
