There are some cities that you’d immediately associate with startups. New York, Boston and San Francisco, for instance, are all synonymous with startups and thriving economies for businesses to not only survive but become successful. Not Columbus, Ohio. Which is quite funny really, because Safe Chain Financial, a new startup involving the use of blockchain technology was formed by three people in Columbus via a local venture accelerator, back in 2016. With that in mind, at DotCom Magazine we thought we’d highlight the cities that are becoming increasingly great for startups.
Baltimore
Starting with Baltimore, it’s not really surprising that this has become a successful hub for a growing number of startups, given how relatively close to Washington D.C. it actually is. John Hopkins Technology Ventures is the commercial arm of the school’s investors and researches and during last year, had a total of 164 patents, making it the seventh most of any school in the country.
Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte benefits from having the lowest business costs of any large city in the U.S. Venture Capital investments in Charlotte was $881m between 2015 and 2017, making it 590% higher than it was in the three years prior to that. This was fueled in part by two massive raises received by AvidXchange, the payment processing platform. Charlotte has been mentioned a number of times by DotCom Magazine and with good reason. It does seem to attract a lot of successful people.
Denver
It’s not just the sun and amazing mountains that Denver has to offer. It now has an increasingly successful startup community with a diverse economy. The workforce in Denver is made up of around 150,000 college students with a high standard of education that is the perfect pipeline of labor for new and up-coming startups. The reason Denver is having a lot of success is partly due to the fact it is holding on to its homegrown talent and also becoming a magnet for people from other towns and cities who want to live there, because of the opportunities open and the lifestyle.
St. Louis
Compared to how it was before, the venture capital investment value in St Louis has increased over the last three years by 90%. Since 2011, part of this increase is Essence Group Holdings, the software firm specializing in cloud-based products and services has had three raises that have totaled $241m. Other major VC deals in this city include Benson Hill Biosystems, Varity Tutors and Jane.ai.
Columbus
Already highlighted at the outset of our post, Columbus has fast become one of the best places to raise funds for a startup. With Mark Kvamme and Chris Olsen, who were former partners at Sequoia Capital leaving Silicon Valley to move to Columbus and start Drive Capital in 2012. It just so happens that now the number of funds per capita in this city are ranked higher than any other U.S. city or town.
