Allied Legal Review: Startup Genome’s 2020 Startup Ecosystems Rankings

This article is a summary of Startup Genome’s 2020 Global Startup Ecosystem Report. To read the full report, click here. 

Startup Genome publishes annual reports ranking the top startup ecosystems around the world. This report analyses and compares the strength of the startup industry across 300 locations to determine who is leading the way in startup innovation. 

Overview

The top seven global startup ecosystems have not changed from last year and continue their hold on the global ecosystem. These 7 ecosystems dominate the charts with a combined ecosystem value of $1.5 trillion. This is 1.7 times greater than the remaining 33 top ecosystems, and are ranked as follows:

• In first place, Silicon Valley;
• Tied in second place, New York and London; 
• In fourth place, Beijing;
• In fifth place, Boston. 
• Tied in sixth are Los Angeles and Jerusalem. 

With 4 of the top 7 ecosystems being American cities, the USA maintains its leadership in the startup industry, however Asia continues to see an upwards trend, representing 30% of the top ecosystems, and seeing 6 new entrants in the top 40 list.

Australia

Once again, Australia has proved itself as a world leader for innovation, with both Sydney and Melbourne placing in the top 40 startup ecosystems. Australia is one of 6 countries with more than one ecosystem making it into the top list:

With Melbourne being a new entry in the top ecosystem list, this shows a positive trend for Australia’s startup growth. 

Melbourne ranked particularly well for talent, producing more technology talent than any other Australian city.  Monash University and the University of Melbourne also ranked among the top three Australian universities for engineering and technology, so these results are no surprise. 

Both Sydney and Melbourne ranked particularly well for connectedness. This factor measures the amount of community involvement and engagement within the ecosystems. Out of 10 possible points, Sydney scored 8 and Melbourne scored 6 for connectedness, indicating that Australia’s startup community is among the strongest and most active in the world. By way of comparison, Silicon Valley, the top ranked ecosystem, also scored an 8 in this category. 

Where Australia needs to improve across the board is in funding. Sydney and Melbourne both ranked among the lowest of the top ecosystems for access to funding. Both cities, however, received perfect scores for market quality. This demonstrates that there is a lower amount of professional investors compared to other top ecosystems. With our strong talent and connectivity, we anticipate that Australia’s access to funding will only improve in coming years, which should see our ecosystems move further up the list of top ecosystems. 

Get in touch

Here at Allied Legal, we’re passionate about working with startups and seeing Australia’s startup ecosystems grow. We specialise in innovative and disruptive businesses so that we can contribute the level of innovation and creativity to our clients that is needed to for startups to scale successfully. Do you have a legal or commercial question about your startup? Give us a call on 03 8691 3111, or send us an email at hello@alliedlegal.com.au and our team will be there to help.