2023 Best of The Midwest:

Startup City Rankings

Every year, we dive into the data to provide an analytical, objective benchmark to help startup stakeholders from founders and VCs to community champions and elected officials understand how cities within the Midwest are performing relative to each other in their tech startup ecosystems.

2022 - 2023 Highlights

National Peer Rankings: Major Metros

This year we took on the challenge of comparing the Midwest's largest metros with peer cities nationally. Check out how the top Midwest cities compared to LA, Austin and more below.

Explore the Cities

1-10
11-25
> 25
Moved up in rank
Moved down in rank
New City added this Year
1-5
5-15
> 15
Moved up in rank
Moved down in rank
New City added this Year
* We only include west half of Pennsylvania in our definition of Midwest
Detailed Data double_arrow

How Rankings are Calculated

Data is through 6/30/23

Startup Activity

43.5% Weight

A measure of how active and vibrant the startup community in each city is. Factors included are how many active startups are in the CBSA, the growth in startup formation over the last 5 years, the number of exits, and the scale of large outcomes in the last 10 years - exits and fundraises of $50M and higher.

Source: Pitchbook

Access To Resources

39% Weight

A measure of how supportive the city's ecosystem is and resources available to help startups grow. This includes how much each Metro has raised from VCs, the number of local investors, incubators/accelerators, universities, and government support.

Source: the US Census, US Patent & Trademark Office, Fortune.com, Pitchbook, US News & World Report, 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, and population and GDP per capita. As well as ‘connectivity’ indicators like nearness to an airport, number of non-stop flights, highway infrastructure, and quality of internet access.

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.

Annual Rankings