Barring the US, where is the best startup eco-system?
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We’ve worked in two other eco-systems (India & France), and each has clear strengths and trade-offs in terms of talent density, cost of building, access to capital, speed of decision-making, and openness to risk all vary a lot.
Curious to hear from founders and operators who’ve built outside the US:
Which ecosystem punches the most above its weight today?
Where do you see the best balance between talent, capital, and customer access?
Are there cities/countries that are especially strong for specific stages (0→1 vs scaling) or specific verticals (AI, fintech, climate, SaaS, deep tech)?
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SEMrush
I live in Georgia and believe it’s one of the best places to launch a tech startup.
Key advantages:
only 1% taxes for tech businesses
low bureaucracy (very easy to set up and run your business)
significantly lower costs than the EU (coworkings, office rent, employees salary, etc.)
growing hub of skilled IT professionals (many working remotely for global companies)
Operating from Georgia is more profitable and lower risk. And if you’re selling a digital product, attracting customers from other markets is not a problem.
Adaptiv Me
@alina_petrova3 That's interesting - but how friendly is it for outsiders? Can foreigners like us operate easily in Georgia?
Curious to hear about your experience in France! I just moved back to Europe (Lisbon) but was based in NYC for the past 6 years. There are definitely tradeoffs, most likely more prominent than what you experienced in France, but curious to hear your experience.
I have spent a lot of time in Asia as well, and Singapore + Hong Kong are also great places to build!
Adaptiv Me
@veronica_buron1 Welcome back to Europe 🙂
France has been a very mixed (but instructive) experience for us. On the upside, if you manage to navigate the bureaucracy correctly, the level of state support is genuinely impressive. BPI France in particular can be a real accelerator: non-dilutive R&D grants, 0% interest loans, and long-term support that you just don’t see at that scale elsewhere.
That said, the friction is real. The bureaucracy is heavy, timelines are slow, and you need patience (and good local advisors) to get things done. Networking is also a challenge if you don’t speak French fluently. Many high-quality conversations and informal deal flow simply don’t happen in English.
Culturally, I’d say the average mindset is still not very startup-friendly - risk aversion is higher, and that shows up in decision-making speed across the ecosystem. Compared to the US, the pace feels materially slower. France has made huge progress, but IMHO still has miles to go to match the breakneck speed and ambition you see in SF.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_startup_scene
"In 2019, Finland accounted for 10 percent of global startup exits, according to TNW. In terms of local connectivity, the 2018 Global Startup Ecosystem report ranks Helsinki's ecosystem as the best in the world."
That is pretty impressive percentages for country of 5.4 million people.
Adaptiv Me
@gustatom Thanks for sharing that! I've heard a lot about the eco-system in Finland and would love to explore it some day!
TinyCommand
I have built in India and Singapore.
India has very strong talent density and is particularly good for consumer-focused businesses. D2C, logistics, and services tied to physical operations scale very well there because of cost efficiency, market size, and execution speed.
Singapore is strong for FinTech and regulated businesses due to access to capital, regulatory clarity, and regional customer access. That said, neither ecosystem currently matches San Francisco when it comes to AI or deep tech, especially for 0→1 work where talent concentration, risk appetite, and frontier research matter most.
India has been punching way above its weight recently, especially Bangalore. The talent density for engineering is unmatched at the cost, and the domestic market is large enough to validate before going global. The trade-off is that raising from US-based VCs still requires a Delaware flip in most cases. For pure bootstrapping though, building from India with a global customer base is arguably the best setup right now.
Be interested in hearing people’s experiences in Canada. It has the advantage of proximity to US, more immigrant friendly, talent density in Toronto & Vancouver, plus some very attractive government programs like SRED. But access to capital is nowhere near US.
My view here is that actually its becoming less and less important. Sure you get centralized cohorts of people in certain tech hubs, but in the ever more hybrid and remote world, You can be successful anywhere if your willing to travel when needed and are good at using Zoom efficiently. In the UK we have London obviously, but new tech focussed mini hubs are opening all the time in cities like Manchester, Southampton and Bristol. Thats only because they can be efficient at hooking into the wider traditional tech hub ecosystem and have good transport connections,
I'm based in Cape Town South Africa, I think the FinTech space in here is quite big, possibly second to Nigeria and there's alot of talent and skills. Most of these FinTech companies get millions in fundraising due to their ability to scale not only in South Africa but across Africa as well.