Startup City Rankings
Our goal is to provide an analytical, objective benchmark to help companies and individuals alike understand how micro-environments within the Midwest are performing relative to each other.
2019 – 2020 Highlights
- Detroit’s Rivian raise another $350M, followed by an incredible $1.3B in December
- Minneapolis’s Bright Health raised a whopping $635M
- Duolingo became Pittsburgh’s first unicorn
- Columbus’s Root Insurance closed $350M
- Chicago’s VillageMD got $175M and Tempus snagged $100M
- Kansas City’s C2FO raised $200M
- Detroit’s StockX grabbed $110M
- Cincinnati's Lightship Capital became first entirely Black GP VC firm with $50M Fund I
Explore the Cities
How Rankings are Calculated
Startup Activity
41% Weight
A measure of how active the tech community in the city is, and the size and quality of the network available to a new startup. Factors included are the number of startups present, the number of exits, the growth in startup formation and the scale of large outcomes (both large exits and large fundraises).
Source: PitchbookAccess To Resources
41.5% Weight
A measure of how supportive the city's environment is, and the value-add it can provide to help a startup grow. It considers factors such as the quality, quantity and loyalty of the available talent, investor activity, accelerators, universities and government support.
Source: the US Census, US Patent & Trademark Office, HumanPredictions, Fortune.com, Pitchbook, US News & World Report, the Seed Accelerator Rankings Project, The Global Accelerator Network, US Small Business Administration and individual state websites.Business Climate
17.5% Weight
A measure of how conducive the city's economic environment is to attract and scale a business. It includes demographic and economic factors such as the cost of living, labor costs, business tax friendliness, population and GDP per capita, as well as ‘connectivity’ indicators like the quality of internet access, airport and highway infrastructure.
Source: the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the US Census, the Tax Foundation, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance and Google Flights.