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Report: Asia takes lead as home of unicorns among emerging startup ecosystems

According to the latest edition of the Global Startup Ecosystem Report (GSER) by Startup Genome, and the Global Entrepreneurship Network, Asia is taking lead as the home of unicorn startups among the Top 100 emerging startup ecosystems with 36 per cent of such startups being based in the region. This number was followed by North America with 30 per cent and Europe with 27 per cent.

Asian startup ecosystems are now worth US$1.1 trillion in terms of Ecosystem Value or about 30 per cent of the global total.

The Top 100 emerging ecosystems themselves created 124 billion-dollar startups in the 10 year period of 2011-2020, with the majority created in 53 ecosystems. With this rapid development, the emerging ecosystems represent over US$540 billion in ecosystem value, which is a 55 per cent increase from 2020.

Of these emerging ecosystems, Mumbai once again topped the list by outperforming in areas of Performance, Funding, Experience, and Talent.

“… China and India continue to attract the lion’s share of venture capital, accounting for about two-thirds of Asia’s total funding. That is due to their vast consumer markets, rapidly growing economies, and development of global enterprises. Combined, China and India account for over a third of the world’s population: two-thirds reside within a few hours’ flight time,” according to Paul Ark, advisor at Gobi Partners, as quoted by the report.

“China and India also boast growing numbers of unicorn startups and are among the fastest-growing markets for smartphone penetration, 5G technology roll-out, and smart cities development (especially China),” he continued.

In general, the Asian startup ecosystems continued to rise in the ranking with Tokyo climbing up from #15 to #9, Seoul from #20 to #16, Shenzhen from #22 to #19, Bengaluru from #26 to #23, and Hangzhou from #28 to #25.

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When it comes to the Knowledge factor, Asia also took four out of the top five spots with Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul, and Guangzhou coming in the list.

The state of the global startup ecosystems

The GSER report was made by researching 280 entrepreneurial innovation ecosystems and three million startups.

According to JF Gauthier, Founder & CEO of Startup Genome, the report was meant to serve as a foundation for deciding what policies actually produce economic impact and in what context.

According to the GSER, there are now 79 ecosystems generating over US$4 billion in value, more than double the number identified in 2017 while in 2019, the organisation predicted there will be 100 by 2029. A majority of the new entrants are in Europe.

North America continued to dominate the Global Rankings segment of the report with 50 per cent of the Top 30 ecosystems coming from this region, followed by Asia with 27 per cent and Europe with 17 per cent of the top-performing ecosystems globally.

Of this global ecosystem, the new entrant is Tokyo at number nine –up six places from last year’s standing. According to the report, this is largely due to an increased number of successful exits in Tokyo, contributing to a growth in their ecosystem value.

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