This study aims to find out how academic workers’ characteristics are associated with their ownership in firms. It is based on quantitative data for the whole population of academic staff from Estonian public universities. Variables portraying age, academic field, professorship, number of publications and research grants are applied in analysing academic workers having ownership in firms. The results indicate that being a professor, having Science as the primary academic field, and a larger number of publications increase the likelihood of academic ownership while a larger number of grants decreases it. The age of academic worker is not a significant determinant of the likelihood of academic ownership.