Contents

Global Startup Ecosystem

Ranking 2025 (Top 40)

This ranking identifies the Top 40 global ecosystems. These ecosystems are more mature than other ecosystems globally, featuring more large exits (valued over $50 million) and more funding activity.
For more information about how this ranking is created, please see the Methodology section of this report.

Key Findings

  • For the first time since 2019, London has slipped one position in the rankings to become the #3 Global Startup Ecosystem - it was tied with New York City for #2 from 2020-2024. 
  • Boston moved up one rank, entering the Top Five Global Startup Ecosystems again after two years in the #6 position.
  • Paris moved up two positions to #12, driven by increase in the number of unicorns and early-stage deal count.
  • Hong Kong made the most significant improvement of all Top 40 Global Startup Ecosystems, moving up from the Emerging Ecosystems ranking in 2024 to #27 globally this year.
  • Bengaluru also made impressive progress, reaching #14 in the Top 20 ecosystems, an improvement of seven positions from last year.
  • Philadelphia jumped 12 places to #13, the most significant movement of all North American ecosystems in the Top 40.
  • All Chinese ecosystems in the Top 40 made improvements to their rankings: Beijing (+3 to #5), Shanghai (+1 to #10), Shenzhen (+11 to #17), Hangzhou (+13 to #23), and Guangzhou (+6 to #35).
     

Success Factor Highlights

To create the 2025 rankings, we measured six Success Factors in each ecosystem:

  • Performance
  • Funding
  • Market Reach
  • Talent & Experience
  • AI-Native Transition
  • Knowledge

Each of these factors is assessed and awarded a score of 1 to 10, with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest. For more information, please see the Methodology section.


Performance

The Performance Success Factor assesses:

  • Exits: The number of exits over $50 million and $1 billion, as well as the growth of exits.
  • Ecosystem Value: A measure of the economic impact of the ecosystem, calculated as the total exit valuation and startup valuations over a two-and-a-half-year time period.
  • Startup Success: How many startups succeed in the ecosystem. Measured in early-stage success (ratio of Series B to Series A companies), late-stage success (ratio of Series C to A companies), and number of active unicorns.

Funding

The Funding Success Factor assesses:

  • Access: A function of early-stage funding volume and growth.

  • Quality & Activity: The number of local investors; those investors’ experience (average years investing and exit ratio); and their level of activity (percentage of investors active in 2024 and the number of new investors.

Market Reach

The Market Reach Success Factor assesses:

Local Reach

  • Scaleup Production
    • Ratio of startups with $1 billion+ valuations to GDP from H2 2022–2024
    • Ratio of $50 million+ exits to GDP from H2 2022–2024
    • Log of ratio of exits over $50 million from H2 2022–2024 to Series A funding from H2 2022- 2024
  • Local Market
    • the log of GDP of the country
    • Average number of days to commercialization of IP assets

Global Reach

  • Ratio of tech startups (formed after 2015) with international secondary offices
  • Log of tech companies with secondary offices in the ecosystem
  • Log of international investors at Series A round

Talent & Experience

The Talent & Experience Success Factor assesses:

  • Tech Talent
    • Quality & Access: A function of the number and density of top developers on GitHub, English proficiency, and history of exits. Quality is also a proxy for experienced scaled teams in the ecosystem.
    • Cost: Cost efficiency average of software engineer salaries. (Higher salaries lead to lower scores.)
  • Life Sciences Talent
    • STEM Access: Number of STEM students and graduates.
    • LS Access: Number of Life Sciences-focused universities and degree programs.
    • LS Quality: A function of Life Sciences quality of instruction and research at local universities as measured by the Shanghai Rankings.
  • Experience
    • Scaling Experience: The cumulative number of significant exits (over $50 million and over $1 billion) over 10 years for startups founded in the ecosystem.
    • Startup Experience: The cumulative number of early-stage companies started and funded at the Series A stage.

AI-Native Transition Factor

The AI-Native Transition Factor is a composite measure of the degree to which an ecosystem encourages artificial intelligence (AI) startups. This sector has been highlighted over others since Startup Genome believes that AI is increasingly a general purpose technology which will drive growth in other sectors. 

AI-Native Transition

  • Ratio of AI & Big Data startups to all technology startups formed in 2023–2024
  • Ratio of AI-Native startups to all technology startups formed in 2023–2024
  • Ratio of AI-Native total VC funding to all technology total VC funding in 2023–2024

Knowledge

The Knowledge Success Factor assesses:

  • Patents: The volume, complexity, and potential patents generated in the ecosystem.

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