[dukeyukey]

Silicon Valley is top, we all know that. But in terms of startup funding, after the SFBA and Beijing comes London. In terms of startup-friendliness, London typically beats every US hub except the SFBA, and occasionally ties with NYC.

I'll give you places like Stockholm and Amsterdam don't quite hit those heights, but still have healthy ecosystems going for them. But it's difficult to describe the 'EU' way of doing things because the EU is not a federal government; each country is a separate nation, with far more differentiating them than US states

[JumpCrisscross]

> in terms of startup funding, after the SFBA and Beijing comes London

Do not believe this is correct. In 2016, London was No. 7, after 6 American cities; it was ahead of Beijing and Shanghai individually, though not collectively [1]. The next European city is Paris, in No. 16, after Chicago, Austin and Mumbai.

[1[] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/globa...

[dukeyukey]

https://technation.io/report2021/#key-statistics

I was slightly off, London comes 4th after the Bay Area, Beijing and New York, but handily wins out over Boston, Seattle, or any EU city.

[dukeyukey]

I'll dig out the report I'm thinking about, but the data in yours is either from 2016 (report date) or 2012 (where they say at least some of their data is from).

[jandrewrogers]

London is definitely better than the continent for startups, and you can reasonably build a successful startup there (I have). However, in my experience any of the major US tech hubs still have significant competitive advantages versus London for starting a company.

The business and culture of tech startups is just a really mature and highly developed industry in the US. It started in Silicon Valley but these days it is spread across several cities, and there is more domain specialization by city including Silicon Valley.

[reader_mode]

London is not EU, even when they were a member they were a separate story.

[midasuni]

Pre covid U.K. was part of EU, very little has changed yet - same regulations and taxes as in 2019

Claiming “ahh U.K. is different” you might as well say “ahh Bay Area is different”.

[reader_mode]

But UK (and London especially) is different - that's why they left the EU and were always in tention with EU when they were a member, especially with regards to their financial sector. Bay Area, New York, Austin, US has a decent number of hubs, London is most comparable to New York from my experience (I've worked in a London based startup, NY agency and a SF startup) mostly focused on financial and not really into hard tech.

[midasuni]

The U.K. left the EU because of left behind towns blaming the EU for their problems.

London (like Scotland, Liverpool, Manchester) voted massively to stay in the EU. Other gentrified cities like Leeds, Bristol, Oxford, Cambridge also voted to remain.

Where is your evidence that leave was driven by London doing things differently?

[dukeyukey]

The UK is different, because the EU is not like the US federal government. Economic systems and cultures vary massively across the EU, far more than across US states. Hell, half the EU were Marxist-Leninist autocracies just a few decades ago!

[midasuni]

In which case you can say “Portugal is different” or “Denmark is different”

Saying “U.K. is different” implies that Finland, Greece and France are relatively similar