Cape Town ranks among the world’s top emerging start-up ecosystems

STATEMENT BY THE CITY’S MAYORAL COMMITTEE MEMBER FOR ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES AND ASSET MANAGEMENT, ALDERMAN JAMES VOS.

The Global Start-up Ecosystem Report 2020 (GSER 2020) has listed Cape Town as one of the Top 100 emerging start-up ecosystems in the world, ranking second in Africa after Cairo. Read more below:

The latest report comes on the heels of Cape Town being ranked the top start-up city in South Africa by StartupBlink, a Global Start-up Ecosystem Map and Research Center.

As the City, we are immensely proud that Cape Town has been acknowledged as an emergent start-up powerhouse. Cape Town is recognised as the digitech hub of Africa and a leading location for tech start-ups and venture capital deals. The city is also home to almost two-thirds of all start-ups in South Africa. This can be attributed to the many support structures we have put in place to assist entrepreneurs.

From across the globe, entrepreneurs are drawn to choosing Cape Town for a number of compelling reasons, including among others:

• The idyllic lifestyle
• Diverse communities
• Access to start-up capital
• Top tertiary institutions
• World-class talent
• A culture of innovation

The latest ranking is a result of the City, together with our Strategic Business Partners and the private sector’s dedicated efforts to attract investment, create the conditions for businesses to grow and create employment.

The city boasts first-class infrastructure, sound governance and four of the top universities in Africa, providing a skilled workforce. As tech hub of the continent, Cape Town has what it takes to provide a business-friendly environment which grows the economy and creates jobs.

This year, the GSER went beyond listing only the top ecosystems and included the next Top 100 Emerging Ecosystems. The GSER 2020 has nearly doubled the number of ecosystems studied since 2019, assessing over 270 ecosystems across over 100 countries to rank the top 30 globally and runners-up.

According to Start-up Genome, the report took into account the factor weights to rank these ecosystems, which were slightly different from those used for top ecosystems. This was done in order to reflect its emerging status and to emphasise the factors that have more influence in ecosystems that were starting to grow.

The report also revealed that start-up culture and entrepreneurship have spread across the world, and that different ecosystems have gained relevance, impacting economies in a meaningful way.

According to the report, Europe leads in terms of constituents in the Emerging Ecosystems list with 38 start-up ecosystems, eight of which were from Eastern Europe. Europe was followed by North America with 32 start-up ecosystems and Asia-Pacific was third with 22 ecosystems.