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The Top 100 Trending Startup Citiesby@David
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The Top 100 Trending Startup Cities

by David SmookeFebruary 16th, 2022
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Startup of the Year Voting closed after a 6 month run from June 2021 to January 2022. On Valentine’s Day, the startup of the year winners were announced and we open sourced this startup voting data if anyone would like to use it. By digging into the aggregate vote count each city’s startups earned, we can approximate the HackerNoon community’s interest for startups in all the major cities of the world.

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Do you wonder where startups trend?

Startup of the Year Voting closed after a 6 month run from June 2021 to January 2022. On Valentine’s Day, the startup of the year winners were announced and we open sourced this startup voting data if anyone would like to use it (still cleaning up and better organizing some of the data, thanks for the patience! I wanted to share some early learnings).


All of the startup winners earned tech company news pages on HackerNoon. Essentially, the community voted on which startups deserve more coverage. These pages include business overviews (such as head count, founding year, bio, social links, and domain ranking) coupled with dynamic updates every time the company is mentioned in HackerNoon stories or relevant headlines around the web.


By digging into the aggregate vote count each city’s startups earned, we can approximate the HackerNoon community’s interest for startups in all the major cities of the world.

Most voted on Startup City Award (Rank By Votes, Name, Population, Votes)

RANK

NAME

POPULATION

VOTES

1

Boulder

124345

14564

2

Singapore

4608167

12889

3

New York City

18713220

10507

4

San Francisco

744041

8064

5

Miami

6445545

7953

6

Redwood City

86380

7894

7

Porto

263131

4714

8

City Of London

7512400

3776

9

Los Angeles

3849378

3566

10

Tel Aviv

460613

3358

11

Zug

30934

3358

12

Beiru

1792000

2406

13

Santiago

5477804

2331

14

Vilnius

553038

1961

15

Bucarest

1,883,425

1798

16

Boston

559034

1555

17

Copenhagen

501158

1461

18

Kyiv

2,962,180

1450

19

Chicago

2833321

1279

20

Lisbon

1962000

1189

21

Louisville

1005654

1154

22

Berlin

3387800

1150

23

Tallinn

391000

1127

24

Norwich

121553

1124

25

Alexandria

159,467

1103

26

Stockholm

761721

1086

27

Sydney

4119190

1033

28

Hyderabad

6,900,00

1014

29

Las Vegas

552539

928

30

Murcia

422861

911

31

Johannesburg

3225796

900

32

Denver

566974

868

33

Hanoi

3977000

757

34

Brussels

964405

700

35

São Paulo

10886518

573

36

Oakland

433031

566

37

Sofia

1076000

564

38

Amsterdam

739300

562

39

San Luis Obispo

62290

552

40

Los Altos

30089

537

41

Cape Town

2967000

527

42

Mahé

77000

515

43

Lahore

5063499

510

44

Indianapolis

795484

495

45

Arlington

398854

471

46

Melbourne

3592591

452

47

Berkeley

121363

451

48

Kansas City

1636715

445

49

Tallinna

444,532

438

50

Austin

709893

428

51

Lusaka

1246000

422

52

Portland

537081

411

53

Grand Cayman

71100

404

54

South San Francisco

67789

404

55

Scottsdale

258069

403

56

Seoul

9714000

377

57

Riyadh

5126000

372

58

Dnipropetrovsk

1040000

360

59

Mexico City

14007495

350

60

Venice

268934

344

61

Lublin

357200

343

62

Bangalore

5686844

343

63

Pune

3755525

341

64

Ankara

3023000

338

65

San Mateo

104430

320

66

Jaipur

2324319

316

67

Seattle

582454

314

68

San Diego

1256951

313

69

Monterrey

1140639

312

70

Tampa

2908063

309

71

Baltimore

635815

301

72

Lucknow

2266933

289

73

Central

175500

287

74

Brooklyn

2559903

263

75

Minsk

1705000

258

76

Aalborg

142937

256

77

Tel Aviv-yafo

368635

254

78

Gliwice

199900

253

79

Antwerp

466203

225

80

Almaty

1209000

225

81

Munich

1249200

204

82

Kuala Lumpur

1352000

199

83

Belo Horizonte

2412937

195

84

Dublin

506211

194

85

San Jose

929936

185

86

Haifa

269417

183

87

Brisbane

1763131

183

88

Noida

642381

181

89

Lewes

29187

177

90

Palo Alto

65364

177

91

Hermosillo

687968

175

92

Zürich

347517

170

93

Flemington

4577

167

94

Columbus

733203

167

95

Torino

852223

165

96

New Orleans

1020886

164

97

Sheung Wan

14981

164

98

Atlanta

498715

162

99

Heraklion

211370

160

100

Dover

104490

157


IMHO this data indicates locations that have historically have been more welcoming to startups through various business and tax incentives, such as Zug (13th), Mahé (44th) and Grand Caymen (55th), are all rewarded with worldwide interest in their startups that far exceeds their local populations.


Surprisingly, Redwood City (7894 votes) received 44X the amount of votes as Palo Alto (177 votes), which historically has been more of a glorified startup scene. Also I’m not sure why, but am impressed than Porto is also hanging with San Francisco in the top ten as cities whose startup interest drastically out paces their population.


Boulder rising all the way to #1 could be a product of HackerNoon’s HQ being based in Colorado, but Boulder is nowhere near a top ten city in terms of historical readership to HackerNoon. It certainly was an overall interest in the Boulder startup scene as opposed to a single startup or two driving the activity as first, second and third place were all within a close margin (567, 527 and 520 votes respectively).


I’m looking into this data more! Will be posting what I learn here on HackerNoon.