SEATTLE RANKS AS 9TH-BEST CITY WORLDWIDE FOR STARTUPS

Seattle has long been home base to big tech businesses like Amazon and Microsoft, but the city is increasingly a haven to smaller startups and spin-off companies as well. Recognizing the city’s potential for hosting successful startups, think tank Startup Genome recently placed Seattle at no. 9 on their list of the top 30 global ecosystems for startups.

To generate their rankings, Startup Genome evaluates ecosystems on seven indicators of success, including performance, funding, market reach, talent, connectedness, knowledge and infrastructure. The top five ecosystems on this year’s list — Silicon Valley, New York City, London, Beijing and Boston — were also at the top of the list for 2019.

Seattle, however, jumped up three places from last year — landing it within the top 10 startup ecosystems in the world. Of the various success indicators, Seattle ranked particularly high in connectedness, even beating the overall number one ecosystem, Silicon Valley, in this category.

Among Seattle’s other indicators, performance, market reach and talent were also particular strengths.

According to GeekWire, researchers at Startup Genome also noted Seattle’s high performance in big data, A.I., analytics, and its thriving life sciences industry.

Another point of interest is Seattle’s “startup genealogy,” as defined by Startup Genome. Essentially, new founders can draw on a strong legacy of experience from other industry leaders like Microsoft and Amazon. The prevalence of spin-off companies helmed by employees with experience at larger, established companies creates an environment in which startups can tap into time-tested industry knowledge and experience from the get-go. Research and talent from the University of Washington has also been beneficial for improving the Seattle startup ecosystem.

Though Seattle scored lower on funding resources according to Startup Genome, in 2019 the city saw venture capital funding for startups reach a record-high of $3.59 billion. Additionally, Seattle has stayed strong as a tech hub for STEM jobs, drawing more interest from local investors and national firms alike.

By some estimates, Seattle may be heading for a boom in venture capital investment. According to GeekWire, the city’s pool of talent in tech, STEM programs, angel investors, new venture funds for earl-stage startups and more support for company-building could lead to an influx of capital.

Provided these businesses can weather the present storm of coronavirus, the future looks bright for Seattle’s next generation of startups.

This article was originally posted on GeekWire by Taylor Soper.