startups

Forget Silicon Valley, these 7 cities are great for start-ups


Boston is consistently voted one of the top cities in America for start-ups, including 2016 and 2017 and venture investment in the Boston metro area hit $5.2 billion so far this year, according to Tech Crunch.

“Boston has been an amazing home for Ginkgo,” Barry Canton, co-founder of Ginkgo Bioworks, No. 21 on CNBC Disruptor 50, tells CNBC Make It. The company builds made-to-order microbes for customers in markets such as agriculture, pharmaceuticals and food. “The talent at MIT, Harvard and other universities and industries cannot be found elsewhere,” he says.

David Perry, CEO and president of Indigo Agriculture (No. 18 on CNBC Disruptor 50), an agricultural technology start-up, agrees. “While Boston isn’t an obvious place for agriculture … [w]e’ve continued to hire team members and interns out of Boston’s many research institutions and collaborate with local labs,” he says. “Beyond that, Boston has a strong group of biotechnology investors who are open to exploring innovative technologies.”

The city also has invested in what Canton calls a “booming and diverse” Innovation District on the South Boston waterfront, an area local government and business leaders are positioning “to become a home for start-ups and other entrepreneurial activity,” according to the National Endowment for the Arts website.

And there’s other support available: “When Ginkgo was a brand-new, five-person company, the city helped us find a home and provided loan programs to help us get off the ground.” The Boston Local Development Corp. gave Ginkgo a $150,000 loan in 2009 and the interest for two years was paid for by a grant from the Boston LifeTech program, according to Canton, in exchange for Ginkgo relocating to Boston and making a commitment to hire a diverse workforce.

Plus, “living in a diverse, liberal, cultured city ensures a really high quality of life for our team and their families,” adds Canton.

And Boston is becoming a more affordable place to live since rent prices are dropping. Massachusetts is ranked one of the top 10 states to live in 2018, and Boston is the fifth most liveable city in America, according to the Global Liveability Index by the Economist Intelligence Unit, which ranks cities based on health care, culture and environment, education, infrastructure and stability (crime, conflict and terrorism).



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