Forget top 10, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai not even among world’s top 30 startup cities: Report

Considering India is the third largest startup ecosystem globally, it would be a no-brainer for many to see its top startup cities Delhi NCR, Bengaluru and Mumbai counted among the top startup ecosystems in the world, going by the number of startups and unicorns. However, a new study by PE-VC data platform PitchBook has none of India’s top startup hubs in its list of top 30.

The VC Ecosystem Rankings by PitchBook in fact has placed Mumbai at distant 32^nd, Bengaluru at 34^th, and Gurugram, among tailenders, at 48^th. According to the report, Paris, Sao Paulo, Toronto, Berlin, Hong Kong, Denver, Guangzhou, Tokyo were ahead of Indian cities.

PitchBook said the rankings compare locations based on “overall development and growth rates” relative to one another, assessing the size, maturity and growth rates of a VC ecosystem using proprietary data points housed in the PitchBook Platform. 

The Development Score is based on size and maturity. PitchBook said it analyzed inputs including but not limited to VC deals, exits and fundraising activity to measure size while for assessing the maturity of an ecosystem, the emphasis was on the ability of startups to secure capital, grow, exit and create outliers. 

On the other hand, the Growth Score shows short, medium and long-term growth rates regarding VC deals, exit and fundraising activity across the past six years. 

The top cities on the list were San Francisco, New York, Beijing, Shanghai, Los Angeles, Boston, London, Shenzhen, Seoul, and Tokyo.

In similar reports, for instance by research and policy advisory form Startup Genome last year, Bengaluru was given the 20^th spot, 24^th for Delhi and 31^st for Mumbai based on funding, talent and experience, tech meetups, offices of international startups in India, investment of foreign investors, size of local markets, and more. 

However, in contrast, according to StartupBlink, an index for global startup ecosystems, Bengaluru was the eighth best city for startups in the world followed by Delhi which was the 14^th best city and Mumbai at 25^th. 

Nonetheless, India continues to be the third largest base for unicorns in the world. As per the latest Hurun Global Unicorn Index 2024, while the US continued to lead the unicorn tally with 703 unicorns followed by China with 340, India had 67 unicorns.

Importantly, the number of unicorns in India had declined last year for the first time since 2017. Hurun’s previous years’ unicorn index had reported 68 unicorns in India in 2023 and 2022, 54 in 2021, and 21 in 2020 and 2019.