Sydney and Melbourne among world’s top 25 start-up ecosystems

Sydney and Melbourne are among the world’s top 25 start-up ecosystems, according to new findings, ranked 21^st and 22^nd respectively, but experts say they should be higher up the list.

The findings are from the Startup Genome project, which aims to provide an in-depth analysis of what makes tech start-ups successful.

The project was created by US-based entrepreneurs Bjoern Herrmann, Max Marmer and Ertan Dogrultan.

As part of an initiative on start-up ecosystems, Startup Genome has ranked the world’s top 25 start-up ecosystems, ordered by their average throughput.

Unsurprisingly, Silicon Valley – encapsulating San Francisco, Palo Alto, San José and Oakland – is ranked first, followed by New York, London, Toronto, Tel Aviv, Singapore and Sao Paulo.

Bangalore and Moscow round out the top 10, followed by Paris, Santiago, Seattle, Madrid, Chicago, Vancouver, Berlin, Boston, Austin and Mumbai.

Sydney is ranked the 21^st top start-up ecosystem, followed by Melbourne, however industry experts say while the findings are positive, both cities can strive to be higher on the list.

Kate Kendall is the founder of The Fetch, an online guide to what’s happening in business, digital and creative communities across Sydney and Melbourne.

“I’ve spent a bit of time across hubs over the past few years and think [the findings are] fairly accurate, though I am surprised at the relatively low Oz rankings,” Kendall says.

“I think part of it is we have a crazily blossoming ‘scene’ but not really a proper ‘community’ yet.”

“If Australia was more centrally located [and] had a larger market… we’d see a bigger influx of people coming to start-up here in the same way Berlin and the San Francisco Bay Area attracts outside talent.”

Meanwhile, Mick Liubinskas, co-founder of Sydney-based start-up incubator Pollenizer, says while he’s proud both cities even made the list, Sydney at least should be higher up.

“We should be in the top 10. Maybe not tomorrow, but next year. There is no excuse for us not to be there,” he says.

“If we need more investors, build great businesses and they’ll come. If we need government support, succeed without them and years later it will get better.”

“If we need bigger markets, let’s get better at global marketing and partnerships.”

After ranking the world’s top start-up ecosystems, Startup Genome went into a great level of detail about the top three – Silicon Valley, New York and London.

According to the findings, Silicon’s Valley’s ecosystem is currently three times bigger than New York’s and 4.5 times bigger than London’s. However, the gap is growing smaller every year.

Compared to New York entrepreneurs, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are 50% less likely to build marketplaces but 23% more likely to be build social networks.

Compared to entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, London entrepreneurs are 50% more likely to build eCommerce products but 35% less likely to build social products.

Meanwhile, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are 13% more likely to tackle new markets than London entrepreneurs.

However, London entrepreneurs are 21% more likely than Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to tackle existing markets with better products.