Top US Cities for Digital vs Physical Startup Funding

Top US Cities for Digital vs Physical Startup Funding

Author

Peter Walker

|

Read time: 

1 minute

Published date: 

September 15, 2024

Bay Area leads both digital and physical startup categories, but cities like Boston and San Diego punch above their weight in biotech, while Austin shines in...

LinkedIn: Top US Cities for Digital vs Physical Startup Funding

The top 10 list for US cities by startup funding - this time split by what the startups are building.

Digital startups = the ones you're most familiar with. We're talking SaaS, Fintech, Edtech, Adtech, etc. Software products, by and large.

Physical startups = those making real world products. These include Hardware, Biotech, Medical Devices, etc.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗢𝘂𝘁?

  • Bay Area comes in first in both lists, reaffirming that the ancestral home for startups has not lost any luster.

  • New York is a strong 2nd for digital but 3rd for physical (and in competition with some up and comers on that side).

  • Boston holding down a respectable 4th in digital and a very strong 2nd in physical, led by the Biotech sector.

  • San Diego is 4th in physical and not in the top 10 in digital thanks to Biotech (perhaps the most concentrated startup ecosystem in the US).

  • Austin has a diversified startup base, placing in the solid middle of the top 10 in both categories.

  • Chicago and Miami both top 10 in digital and not found on the physical list.

  • Houston sneaking into the top 10 in physical (buoyed by some major Energy rounds in the last 12 months).

You can build a startup anywhere, but certain locations have a strong pull for certain founders. Network density is not an easy thing to create!

#startups #fundraising #founders #venturecapital

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Peter Walker
Author: Peter Walker
Peter Walker runs the Insights team at Carta, focused on discovering key data and narratives across the private capital ecosystem. In a former life, he was a marketing executive for a media analytics startup and led the data visualization team at the Covid Tracking Project.

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