Eli David Rokah was looking to build something cool to reflect his deep affinity for startups. He began collecting information on cities and their startups without yet knowing what pain points he could solve. Soon his mission became clear and StartupBlink was born. He would use data and algorithms to rank the quality of cities in terms of their startup ecosystems, delivering a wide range of novel insights for governments, entrepreneurs, and other stakeholders. Fast forward just a few years and StartupBlink has just released its highly anticipated 2024 global startup ecosystem index, the world’s most comprehensive ranking of startup ecosystems in 1000 cities and 100 countries.
Understanding Startup Ecosystems
At the heart of StartupBlink is a publicly accessible global map and ranking system that provides deep research on over 180,000 organizations such as startups, coworking spaces, research and development centers, and accelerators. The data is attained from multiple sources including the startups themselves, governments, and databases such as Crunchbase. They collect and process enough data to produce statistically valid results.
The global map produces details on the cities—and by extension the countries—in which they reside. Evaluating a startup ecosystem will quickly answer questions such as the degree of startup activity, investment levels, number of created jobs, the impact to local and national economies, and the type and availability of quality talent. In fact, over 50 parameters are used to produce the rankings.
A central and early use of the global map became a way for entrepreneurs to make location decisions. Rokah learned this directly from the entrepreneurs themselves. He quickly surfaced evidence that the location of a startup has a considerable impact on its success. A thriving startup ecosystem provides essential support that includes capital availability, government assistance, research, accelerators, and influential stakeholders. It creates a place where people with similar interests can connect, collaborate, and get access to essential resources.
While startup entrepreneurs are a central customer, StartupBlink also provides knowledge and insights to governments, multilateral organizations, and corporations. Annually, over half a million visitors check out the global map for a wide variety of reasons.
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Ranking Startup Ecosystems
For local and federal governments, from Jamaica to Azerbaijan, getting a good ranking has become competitive. For reasons such as economic growth, benchmarking, and global prestige, a high ranking or one that suggests a rapid climb year over year, is a powerful marketing tool. Similarly, a drop in ranking can act as an incentive to adjust a community’s strategy.
While evaluating startup ecosystems, StartupBlink largely focuses on the results of startup and government efforts. They are less concerned with how success is achieved. Results are assessed for a given ecosystem such as the number of startups that exist there, how many become unicorns (businesses valued at over $1 billion), and how many jobs are being created. Measuring the reasons they achieve their results is noted, but not explored, because it varies too greatly from place to place.
Looking at this year’s ranking offers few surprises in the top ten. US cities fair well, with San Francisco and New York in first and second place. The cities of London, Beijing, Bangalore, Tel Aviv, and Paris are all, perhaps unsurprisingly, in the category of high performing startup ecosystems. Each one has become a magnet for attracting global talent.
Many Are Emerging While Others Are Absent
Rokah is keeping a close eye on some promising cities. Singapore is doing well and becoming an innovation hub in Asia, with Taiwan following to a lesser degree. He’s bullish on Latin America and points, in particular, to Mexico City, Bogotá, and Buenos Aires. Several areas of Africa hold promise with Lagos a clear positive outlier. Finally, he is watching the impressive emergence of Dubai and Riyadh in the Middle East as regional powerhouses, that could soon play a significant role globally.
There are still plenty of cities that are absent from the rankings despite a recognition that startups offer a remarkable opportunity for communities in every part of the world. These new businesses bring jobs, significant economic upsides, new industries, and make the cities more attractive to visit and do business in.
Why are they absent? For many cities, they just haven’t yet made fostering a startup ecosystem a priority. This requires a deliberate and concerted effort. Rokah says that local governments that want to create a startup ecosystem must act like a startup. It’s a refreshing perspective and suggests that city efforts should be agile, accessible, intensely marketing-focused, and ready to take risks. However, he advises caution: government shouldn’t get too deep into how the startups function—a point Rokah found in his research to be a source of failure—but rather find ways to enable those businesses to deliver their magic.
As for advice for communities wanting to establish a startup ecosystem, Rokah recommends offering a wide range of resources including funding, training, varied incentives, and streamlined or eliminated bureaucracy. He also suggests that local civic leaders should talk to their existing startups. Ask them why they stay, why some leave, and what they think would attract more talent.
Still too many of the important decisions we make individually and as organizations are based on intuition. Sure, intuition has a vital role, but for governments, entrepreneurs, corporates, and more, data-driven decision-making holds the key to securing the best, most informed decisions.
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The 2024 global startup ecosystem index report can be found here.
