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There is no universally best place to build a company. Compare candidate locations against your venture’s customers, hiring needs, financing requirements, regulations and founder constraints, using the same evidence-based scorecard for each. Treat ecosystem rankings as diagnostic clues—not as a decision on their own—and verify what their measures cover before relying on them.
Why the right startup location depends on your company
An entrepreneurial ecosystem is more than a city’s startup reputation or count of venture-capital deals. The OECD defines it as “the broad set of interacting actors and factors that impact on the scale and quality of entrepreneurship in a place” in its 2025 Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Diagnostics.
Those factors matter differently to different companies. A venture selling to local governments may depend on procurement access and public-sector relationships; a deep-tech company may need specialized talent, research partnerships and patient capital. A founder’s ability to live, work or incorporate in a location can also change what is feasible.
Before comparing places, write down the operating conditions your company actually needs:
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors- Where its customers are, and how it will reach them—including procurement or distribution routes.
- Which roles and skills it needs to hire, and when.
- What kinds of financing it needs, at which stages, and whether it can use alternatives to venture capital.
- Which licenses, tax rules, employment obligations or other regulations apply to its business.
- Which suppliers, investors, research partners or industry relationships are important.
- Where the founders can reside and work, and what mobility or immigration constraints apply.
Separate must-haves at launch from advantages that may matter only as the company scales. That distinction should shape the scorecard and its weights.
How do I compare startup ecosystems? Build a company-specific scorecard
Use the same dimensions for every candidate, but keep the underlying evidence visible. For each measure, record its value, source, geographic scope, reference period, definition and confidence. The OECD’s 2025 pilot diagnostic compares all 38 OECD countries across ten ecosystem inputs, using about 40 indicators. Its framework is a useful starting point, not a universal ranking of where every startup should go.
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| Dimension | What to examine for your company | How to interpret it |
|---|---|---|
| Markets | Access to target customers, procurement, distribution and relevant industry clusters. | A large market is useful only if your company can reach and serve the customers in it. |
| Talent | Availability of the specific skills and experience your hiring plan requires. | Broad workforce or digital-skills measures do not establish that a niche role is easy to recruit locally. |
| Finance | Funding sources that match your stage, sector and capital needs. | For example, the OECD includes early-stage venture capital per capita. That indicator does not predict whether a particular founder will secure funding. |
| Institutions and business rules | Rule of law, tax conditions, product-market regulation and business-entry requirements. | Check the current rules relevant to your entity and activities; country-level indicators are not legal or tax advice. |
| Networks and intermediate services | Relevant founder, investor, mentor, university, accelerator and business-support connections. | The OECD treats Networks and Intermediate Services as distinct inputs, so do not assume that one automatically supplies the other. |
| Infrastructure and knowledge | Connectivity, transport, universities and knowledge resources relevant to the work. | Assess what your operations require rather than scoring infrastructure in the abstract. |
| Leadership and culture | Local leadership and cultural conditions that affect entrepreneurship. | These are among the OECD framework’s ten inputs; assess how they relate to your company rather than assuming a single ideal profile. |
| Business outcomes | Measures such as employer-firm births, survival or growth, and young equity-backed firms. | These describe outcomes in a defined period; they do not show that a place caused them or that a new entrant will replicate them. |
| Distribution and access | Regional differences and who participates in entrepreneurship. | National averages can hide differences among regions and groups. The OECD includes measures such as regional distribution and the representation of women and “missing entrepreneurs.” |
The OECD framework covers Institutions, Culture, Networks, Infrastructure, Markets, Finance, Knowledge, Talent, Leadership and Intermediate Services, and also examines entrepreneurship outputs and social and regional variation. Keep input conditions separate from outcomes: the first describe resources and conditions a company might use; the second describe what has happened in a place.
If you turn the scorecard into a numerical score, publish the weights and retain the raw values alongside normalized scores. Test whether a different, plausible set of weights changes the result. Mark unavailable information as missing instead of quietly treating it as average.
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Compare formal rules with how business gets done
Legal requirements on paper and the practical experience of meeting them are related but different. For each candidate, investigate the steps and obligations that apply to your business, including incorporation, licensing, tax, employment and intellectual-property protection. Where property or facilities are relevant, consider the applicable transfer, building and environmental permissions as well.
The World Bank’s Business Ready (B-READY) methodology offers a useful way to organize this check: it separates the regulatory framework, relevant public services and operational efficiency. Its business-entry and business-location topics illustrate why a comparison should cover both rules and the availability, transparency and operation of services—not just the text of a regulation.
B-READY is rolling out over 2024–2026. The World Bank says its 2025 interim edition covers 101 economies, so check the edition and whether each location you want to compare is included. Neither a global indicator nor this article can determine the current requirements for a specific move; confirm them with current jurisdiction-specific sources and qualified professional advice.
How to compare startup hubs beyond rankings
Before using a published index to support a location decision, check what it actually compares. A country-level score cannot resolve a choice between neighborhoods or cities, and an index focused on technology or venture-backed firms may not represent a small business or another industry.
- Geography: Is the observation about a country, region or city—and does that match your decision?
- Population: Which kinds of companies, entrepreneurs or industries are represented?
- Definition: What does each indicator measure, and is it comparable across the places you are weighing?
- Period: What years are included? Historical results are not a real-time reading.
- Coverage: Are any candidate places or relevant dimensions absent?
- Aggregation: What is combined into the overall score, and could a strong result in one area conceal a weakness that matters to your company?
The OECD diagnostic uses three rolling data periods: 2016–2020, 2018–2022 and 2020–2023. The latest is still a historical window, not a current-year measurement. The OECD describes the diagnostic as a pilot and an entry point for deeper analysis, not a replacement for local investigation.
Rankings also reflect their chosen outcome measures. For example, Startup Genome’s 2025 methodology defines Ecosystem Value using exits and funding rounds from H2 2022–2024. That is a specific measure over a specified period—not a comprehensive estimate of every company’s prospects. Read the methodology before interpreting the rank, and do not treat funding concentration or past exits as proof that a new startup will succeed there.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Which city is best for a startup?
Without a company profile and a shortlist of candidate places, there is no defensible single answer. A city’s overall reputation cannot tell you whether your customers are accessible, your key hires are available, your required capital is realistic or your founders can operate there under current rules.
Use aggregate data to narrow questions, then test the questions locally. Speak with founders and relevant service providers, and check current local sources for recruiting lead times, customer access, investor appetite, useful networks and administrative experience. These conversations can reveal factors that broad indicators miss, but they are evidence to weigh—not a representative survey by themselves. The OECD presents its diagnostics as an entry point for deeper analysis and stakeholder dialogue.
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- Define the company’s constraints. List the launch requirements and later-stage advantages that matter to this venture.
- Shortlist plausible places. Remove candidates that fail a non-negotiable requirement, such as customer access or founder eligibility.
- Fill a common scorecard. Use comparable measures where possible, and preserve each value’s source, geography, definition and date.
- Investigate gaps and risks. Check local rules and services, then validate hiring, customer, financing and network assumptions with people who know the market.
- Stress-test the choice. Adjust weights to reflect reasonable changes in company priorities. If the preferred place changes easily, gather better evidence before committing.
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