The average age of the founders behind the UK’s 100 best-funded start-ups is 37.
The finding goes against the popular stereotype of a successful business owner as a 20-something university dropout, the study by the Entrepreneurs Network said.
As well as a median age of 37, the analysis, which looked at the 100 UK companies with the highest fundraising in the last two years, showed that the 186 founders range from 18 to 67 years old, and almost as many are 50 or older (20%) as are under 30 (23%).
Age varies across industries.
Energy and climate founders are the oldest, with a median age of 53.
Biotech and pharma business owners have a median age of 46, with more than a third 50 or older when they started.
Fintech entrepreneurs have a median age of 34, while AI and software founders are the youngest at 33.
Of the 100 companies studied, 42 are solo-founded and 58 have two or more co-founders. Of the multi-founder teams, 11 have an age gap of 20 years or more between their youngest and oldest member.
Report author Dr Mann Virdee, said:
“The myth of the young dropout founder persists because of a small number of well-known outliers in popular media, such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. But the data on Britain’s highest-raising companies tells a different story.
“There’s time for those over 40 who worry they’ve missed their window to start a company, as well as for those under 25 who are in a hurry to be a founder. The message aspiring founders should take from this research is there’s no single right age to start, and time spent working in the sector you hope to disrupt is rarely wasted.”
Earliest this year, analysis of over 9.2 million company director appointments found that the average age of a UK founder has remained virtually static at 43 years old since 2020.