Bengaluru is the only Indian city to feature amidst the top 20 startup ecosystems in the world, according to the Global Startup Ecosystem Report of 2017. While it comes in at number 20 in the list, Bengaluru also has the lowest annual salary for the software engineers working in startups, in the top 20. 

With an average salary of $8,600 per annum, techies of Bengaluru’s startups are paid 13 times less than those of Silicon Valley, and 4 times lower than in the Asia Pacific region. The global average salary is $49,000; more than 5 times that of Bengaluru. However, as per the report, the fact that talent acquisition is so inexpensive in Bengaluru, is one of the main reasons for many startups moving there. 

Some of the other key findings from the report are as follows:- 

• The number of startups in Bengaluru ranges between 1800 and 2300, as against a global average of 1762  

• 94 per cent of Bengaluru’s startup founders have a technical background, which is the highest in the world

• 10 per cent of the Bengaluru startups have women founders, while the global average is 16 per cent

• 45 per cent of the Bengaluru’s startup founders have at least 2 years of prior work experience in a startup, which places it in the upper one-third of the global ecosystems, close to Silicon Valley at 49 per cent, and Tel Aviv at 55 per cent.   

• Even though there are challenges with access (time taken to hire) and quality (comprising experience and visa success rate), Bengaluru’s engineers are the most cost-efficient among the global top 20 

Bengaluru has dropped five places from the 15th rank that it attained in the 2015 report. Beijing, Shanghai and Stockholm are new entrants to the top 20 list, securing ranks 4, 8 and 14 respectively. The rise of the Chinese cities is especially remarkable, as it was unknown to many in the Western world, at least until now. This growth can be attributed to the Chinese government’s investment of $231 billion into its startups in 2015, and a huge domestic market of around 1.3 billion consumers.

The rankings in the report are based on five parameters in total: performance, funding, market reach, talent, and startup experience. The research is an initiative of Startup Genome, and was first carried out in 2011.