Leading Ecosystems

There has been much discussion of the Leading Ecosystems for startups. But few of the discussions explain which are more useful; to whom and why. Fewer discuss which Ecosystems best help SMEs. In other words after a startup reaches (European) SME status which metropolitan area will serve it best?

“Where can an entrepreneur find the right concentration of many different types of customers and engaged mentors—where the culture runs so deep that even the local gym offers free services in exchange for equity in your startup? In a thriving local startup ecosystem. (And yes, this is a Silicon Valley reality.)”  The Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking 2015 by Compass.co (formerly Startup Genome) with the support of Crunchbase.

Leading Ecosystems

“The world’s top 20 startup ecosystems based on Performance, Funding, Market Reach, Talent, and Startup Experience” are listed below as reported in The Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking 2015 by Compass.co (formerly Startup Genome) with the support of Crunchbase.

31 Ecosystems listed as runners-up by The Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking 2015 are Atlanta, Denver/Boulder, Philadelphia, Waterloo, Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile, Mexico City, Barcelona, Brussels, Copenhagen, Dublin, Helsinki, Istanbul, Jerusalem, Lisbon, Madrid, Milan, Oslo, Rome, Stockholm, Tallinn, Teheran, Warsaw, Zurich, Bangkok, Delhi, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne, and Mumbai.

Ecosystems For SMEs

“VC firms are, by and large, structured to make multi-million dollar investments in a small number of late-stage startups that they can shepherd from strong to stratospheric results.” according to The Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking 2015.  But what is the best way to get from being an early stage startup to being “late-stage”?  In Europe companies in this intermediate stage are sometimes called SMEs. The US Government defines Small Businesses somewhat differently.  This causes some confusion.  From a (European terminology) SME perspective; Carverlon sees that Silicon Valley, London, Berlin, Dublin Ireland and Luxembourg each have significant advantages. This is because of their existence as regional, worldwide or sector specific corporate headquarters clusters, the connections to the Global 1000, connections to financing, and in the case of Ireland and Luxembourg, also having attractive corporate tax rates and tax treaties. Estonia, The Netherlands, Singapore and Hong Kong also offer some of these characteristics.

Please Also See 

• The related Post Ecosystem Characteristics
• The Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking 2015 by Compass.co (formerly Startup Genome) with the support of Crunchbase
• Wired has an interesting article titled Building a New Silicon Valley in a Post-Soviet Dictatorship on entrepreneurial activity in Belarus. It states “In the past few years, a small, determined, and growing community of entrepreneurs has tried to leverage Belarus’ deep pool of programming talent to foster a start-up scene. The goal is to change Belarus’ business culture”.
• iamWire published an article titled 6 Hottest Startup Hubs in China
• Inc published the article Top 10 Cities for Fast-Growth Businesses in Europe listing Budapest, Oslo, Rome, London, Bucharest, Stockholm, Vilnius, Milan, Riga and Paris.
• “The Global Innovation Index … is co-published (annually) by Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO, an agency of the United Nations).  It ranks 141 countries.  The top ranked for 2015 are Switzerland, UK, Sweden, Netherlands, United States, Finland, Singapore, Ireland, Luxembourg, Denmark, Hopng Kong and Germany.  The 453 page PDF is available as The Global Innovation Index 2015  Also available are Infographics.  There is some commentary in the article Ireland cracks top ten in world innovation rankings.

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