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Bengaluru is home to 15th-best startup ecosystem in the world: Report

Posted on July 30, 2015 by K4 Bangalore
Originally Published on Economictimes.com

The report specially commended Bengaluru for showing five-fold increasing in exits, quadrupling VC investment, and for having the highest growth in the number of seed investments. Its growth index is ranked second globally, only after Berlin.

BENGALURU: Bengaluru is home to the world's 15th-best startup ecosystem in the world, up from 19th three years ago, according to a global Startup Ecosystem Report published by Valley-based startup benchmarking firm Compass. Specifically, Bengaluru is ranked number 10 in the valuation and number of startups and number 6 in access to funding, but lags behind in talent and market reach.

"Delighted Bengaluru is ascending in global rankings of tech ecosystems. The city's multi-faceted ecosystem attracts talent and expertise from around the globe and also our diaspora, all of which have enabled Bengaluru to hit the tipping point," commented Ravi Gururaj, chairman of the Nasscom Product Council. Meanwhile, Sharad Sharma, cofounder and CEO of software product think tank iSPIRT, thinks that the metrics for Bengaluru may be underreported. "Bengaluru has the best reach into digital consumers in India... this kind of reach is not there in any other place other than SV and China.

Bengaluru is where people come together, inspired by the opensource model, to build public goods at a scale that is not seen anywhere else other than the Silicon Valley," he commented. This is the second startup ecosystem report from Compass (formerly Startup Genome), the first being in 2012. The top 10 ecosystems include seven cities in the US, with Silicon Valley taking the lead.

Tel Aviv, Berlin and Singapore round up the list. Singapore is the only other Asian city on the list, jumping to tenth position from number 17 in 2012. It is commended for its funding access, market reach, and startup experience, but it ranked last for talent access. The report excludes China, Japan, and South Korea due to language constraints in data collection.

The report specially commended Bengaluru for showing five-fold increasing in exits, quadrupling VC investment, and for having the highest growth in the number of seed investments. Its growth index is ranked second globally, only after Berlin.