USA today released an article today on Top cities for technology startups. It contains data from National Venture Capital Association. It covered top 10 cities and gave a great writeup on what is happening in each place. Their ranking was more or less based on amount of investment happening in each city and the usual suspects the winners as you can see.
I just thought of doing a little bit of hackery on top of the data to see how it would fair in case your parameters to select a city were different, here are quick results:
Top 10 cities based on most number of Startups
| Rank | City |
| 1 | San Francisco Area |
| 2 | New York |
| 3 | Los Angeles Area |
| 4 | Boston |
| 5 | Chicago |
| 6 | Austin |
| 7 | Seattle |
| 8 | Boulder/Denver |
| 9 | San Diego |
| 10 | Washington DC |
Top 10 cities based on most number of Funded Startups
| Rank | City |
| 1 | San Francisco Area |
| 2 | New York |
| 3 | Boston |
| 4 | Washington DC |
| 5 | Los Angeles Area |
| 6 | Seattle |
| 7 | San Diego |
| 8 | Boulder/Denver |
| 9 | Chicago |
| 10 | Austin |
Top 10 cities based on percentage of startups funded
| Rank | City |
| 1 | Washington DC |
| 2 | Boston |
| 3 | San Diego |
| 4 | Seattle |
| 5 | Boulder/Denver |
| 6 | New York |
| 7 | Austin |
| 8 | Chicago |
| 9 | San Francisco Area |
| 10 | Los Angeles Area |
Top 10 cities based on total dollars invested (Usa today ranking)
| Rank | City |
| 1 | San Francisco Area |
| 2 | Boston |
| 3 | New York |
| 4 | Los Angeles Area |
| 5 | Washington DC |
| 6 | San Diego |
| 7 | Chicago |
| 8 | Austin |
| 9 | Boulder/Denver |
| 10 | Seattle |
top 10 cities based on average funding across All startups
| Rank | City |
| 1 | Boston |
| 2 | Washington DC |
| 3 | San Francisco Area |
| 4 | San Diego |
| 5 | Boulder/Denver |
| 6 | New York |
| 7 | Chicago |
| 8 | Los Angeles Area |
| 9 | Austin |
| 10 | Seattle |
top 10 cities based on average funding across Funded startups
| Rank | City |
| 1 | San Francisco Area |
| 2 | Los Angeles Area |
| 3 | San Diego |
| 4 | Boston |
| 5 | Chicago |
| 6 | Austin |
| 7 | New York |
| 8 | Boulder/Denver |
| 9 | Washington DC |
| 10 | Seattle |
The data correctly it is slightly skewed based on big players and huge investments happening in them e.g. Twitter/Facebook etc but nevertheless it tells us a little bit about patterns. The full comparison data is listed below:
Conclusion
This was not intended to be a conclusive article at all. It is just a fun exercise but in very broad strokes you can say something like:
- Your likelihood of getting funded is highest in Washington DC, Boston, San Diego, Seattle or Boulder/Denver.
- If you want to raise big money then you rather be anywhere in California or in Chicago or Boston.
- If you want to be cities filled with money then San Francisco, Boston, NYC, LA or DC are your best bets.
But based on all of the above diggings it feels like Boston might really be the all around champion of the study and if you are wanting to remain frugal yet immerse in startup scenes then DC, Seattle or Colorado might not be bad choices after Boston either!!
Hope this was a fun read!! I also hang out on twitter @VishalRJoshi if you would like to follow.
-Vishal
