Asia has many cities that can offer excellent conditions to startup founders, including massive growth markets, talent pools, and a low cost of living in many cases. The top ecosystems of the continent include some cities in developed nations, but mostly from highly-populated and fast-growing India and China (with 7 out of the top-10 ecosystems being from these two countries, including the top-4). In this article, we will present the 10 Best Startup Cities in Asia in 2020 (the scope includes cities from Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia).

1. Beijing, China
2. Shanghai, China
3. Bangalore, India
4. New Delhi, India
5. Tokyo, Japan
6. Seoul, South Korea
7. Mumbai, India
8. Singapore City, Singapore
9. Shenzhen, China
10. Hong Kong, China

The Best Startup Cities in Asia

To find out which cities are the best places to run a startup, StartupBlink has analyzed startup ecosystems in 1,000 cities and 100 countries to publish its annual Global Startup Ecosystem Rankings Report 2020.

In the report, Asia continues to fare well, with 18 countries in our top-100 rankings, including 5 in the top-30 countries club. The most represented sub-region is Southeast Asia with 7 countries in the rankings, although only one city in the regional top-10.

1. Beijing, China

Beijing, as the Chinese capital, is the country and continent’s startup powerhouse. It ranks 6th globally, the city is the home of many high quality startups (more than 30 unicorns), including well-known names like Xiaomi and ByteDance (developers of TikTok). The city has an impressive talent pool, and benefits from its closeness to China’s center of power.

2. Shanghai, China

Shanghai is China’s most populated city, a very important market within the country, and  with Beijing one of only two Asian cities in the global Top-10 (ranked 10). The city’s startups overperform in the quality factor of our rankings, with more than 15 unicorns based there, and is home to a large variety of coworking spaces nurture new startups in the city. 

3. Bangalore, India

Many consider Bangalore to be India’s version of Silicon Valley. The city is home to one India’s oldest and most prestigious technical universities, the Indian Institute of Science. Ranked 14th globally, the city is home to a plethora of coworking spaces, and has nurtured five Unicorns. It is a particularly strong ecosystem in the Software & Data and Social & Leisure verticals.

4. New Delhi, India

India’s capital city is the 4th highest ranked startup ecosystem in Asia, and ranks just 15th globally, after climbing 3 spots since last year. As all Indian cities, it has a long way to go in the Business score factor, but the ecosystem quantity and quality is very good, having even two Unicorns. The clear top vertical of the city is Software & Data.

5. Tokyo, Japan

Ranked 16th globally (after decreasing two spots since 2019), Tokyo is the only Japanese city in our Top-100 ranking. The city (and country) stands out for the very high Business score it has, significantly better than the rest of the ecosystems in Asia’s Top-5. It’s currently the home of 3 Unicorns, and it has 6 Pantheons (the highest number in this list), including Softbank, Toshiba and Rakuten. 

6. Seoul, South Korea

Much like Tokyo, Seoul is a city that scores very high on the Business aspect, explaining its rank of 21st globally. This business climate has made it possible for very large corporate conglomerates to emerge (the Chaebol), and more recently has inspired many entrepreneurs to create their own startups, including 7 current unicorns. Government initiatives that incentivize entrepreneurship, combined with world-class engineers with world famous work ethic have also contributed to the success of the ecosystem. 

7. Mumbai, India

The 3rd and last Indian city in Asia’s Top-10, Mumbai is also India’s most populous city and commercial capital. The city is ranked as the world’s 22nd startup ecosystem, benefiting from a high concentration of Angel and VC investment. As is the case with the other highly ranked Indian cities, Mumbai scores highly on the Quantity front, while it has grown some quality startups including 3 current Unicorns.  

8. Singapore City, Singapore

Singapore City ranks 26th globally for its startup ecosystem, strongly leveraging its top notch Business climate (highest Business score on this list) and Quality of their startups (2 Unicorns in a relatively small ecosystem). The city also boasts a highly educated talent pool, low taxes and multiple government initiatives, and the dominating vertical is Fintech by far.

9. Shenzhen, China

Globally, Shenzhen ranks as the 33rd best startup ecosystem, and its business scene in general has benefited since the 1980s when it was chosen as the country’s first special economic zone. More recently, it has become the Chinese home of many multinational tech companies, and has developed as a hub for startups in the country, even nurturing global giants such as Tencent (parent company of WeChat) and Huawei.

10. Hong Kong, China

The most “Western” of Asia’s cities, Hong Kong has long been an important financial and business hub, as well as a gateway to China. It’s ranked in our report as the world’s 36th best startup ecosystem, with a very good Quality score (it has one Unicorn). Although the top vertical in the city is Software & Data, it also has a significant concentration of Fintech startups.

The Asian Giants

Of the top 10 startup cities in Asia, only half of them are capital cities. This gives a perspective on the relative importance China and India have on the region, the only 2 countries that have non-capitals on the list. Not surprisingly, these are two of the countries with the fastest-growing economies in the last 3 decades. Nevertheless, it’s worth mentioning that Southeast Asia is a very interesting subregion, with 5 cities in the Top-100 (although only Singapore City made it to the Asian Top-10).

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This list was compiled based on the results of Global Startup Ecosystem Rankings Report 2020 that ranked 1,000 cities and 100 countries worldwide. If your city was not included in this list yet but you want to find out the current status of your local startup ecosystem, download the Report for free here and start discovering.

Compiling the list for Asia was made simple with the help of the PRO account, and our Ecosystem Partners

If you want to check Best Startup Cities in Europe, check this article.

At StartupBlink, together with Health Innovation Exchange (HIEx) by UNAIDS and the Moscow Agency of Innovations, we have launched the Coronavirus Innovation Map including more than 1,000 projects created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this crisis-ridden environment, innovators have stepped up to help in the best way they know: solving problems. Organizations working in different areas have adapted solutions and forged alliances with the aim of defeating COVID-19 and its consequences.

Through modification of our proprietary algorithm, we ranked countries and cities by number and types of innovations, with extra points given for selected outstanding initiatives, identified as the Champions. The COVID-19 Innovation Report, showcases the rankings of the best performing 32 countries and 80 cities, as well as selected innovations for each of those countries.

Main Insights of the Report

At the country level, we see some similarities between the leaders of the COVID-19 Innovation rankings and our Global Ecosystem Rankings. The United States leads global COVID-19 innovation efforts, while Israel and Canada ranked 2^nd and 3^rd respectively (both beating their general rank by one spot).

In the Top-10, we see important successes from Belgium, Switzerland, Estonia, Italy and Ireland, where local entrepreneurs have undergone an impressive mobilization in the face of the pandemic. Outside of Europe and North America – which dominated the Top-10, we see 5 countries from the Asia Pacific region in the Top-20 (Singapore, China, Taiwan, South Korea and Australia), as well as Kenya (23^rd) and Brazil (30^th) as the best placed African and Latin American countries, respectively.

There is an urgent need to invest in innovation ecosystems to carry them through this crisis – Pradeep Kakkatil (UNAIDS Director of Innovation)

On a  city level, cities such as New York, Milan, Brussels and Barcelona, have been overperforming despite being badly hit by the pandemic. Cities largely unscathed like Taipei and Singapore, also hold strong positions. The Top-3 cities in the ranking are all from the United States: San Francisco, New York and Boston, while the 4^th and 5^th spots are held by Toronto (greatly overperforming in comparison to its Global Ecosystem Ranking) and Tel Aviv. The second half of the Top-10 is also dominated by American cities (Seattle 7^th, San Diego 8^th and Los Angeles 9^th) while London features at 6^th spot and Taipei at10^th.

Conclusion

In our map and report, we can see that there has been an extraordinarily innovative response from Startups, Corporations, NGOs, Public Sector and other organizations around the world. And we believe that the cooperation and solutions developed during this pandemic, as well as the lessons learned, can be helpful in the fight against future global health crises. But the virus hasn’t been defeated yet, and as Pradeep Kakkatil (UNAIDS Director of Innovation) says about health systems, there is “an urgent need to invest in innovation ecosystems to carry them through this crisis”. StartupBlink is here to help.