Beijing −21.4%. San Francisco now 2.7x New York. The 2026 startup map looks nothing like your 2022 mental model.
StartupBlink ranked 1,000 cities and 100 countries (global average +10.3%):
— San Francisco 935 pts vs NYC 352, under 2x in 2023, now 2.7x
— Beijing −21.4%, Shanghai −20%; East Asia the only sub-region in the red
— Riyadh +117.6%, Uzbekistan +227%, Central Asia the fastest-growing sub-region
— France fell out of the global top 10 countries for the first time
The SF lead is structural, not cyclical, since AI capex physically concentrates there. The signal for capital is Saudi Arabia +97%, rank #28, which is where real VC money is moving.
📎 Free PDF, 446 pages, 43.6 MB
https://www.startupblink.com/startupecosystemreport
StartupBlink ranked 1,000 cities and 100 countries (global average +10.3%):
— San Francisco 935 pts vs NYC 352, under 2x in 2023, now 2.7x
— Beijing −21.4%, Shanghai −20%; East Asia the only sub-region in the red
— Riyadh +117.6%, Uzbekistan +227%, Central Asia the fastest-growing sub-region
— France fell out of the global top 10 countries for the first time
The SF lead is structural, not cyclical, since AI capex physically concentrates there. The signal for capital is Saudi Arabia +97%, rank #28, which is where real VC money is moving.
📎 Free PDF, 446 pages, 43.6 MB
https://www.startupblink.com/startupecosystemreport