These 10 cities have the fastest growing startup scenes -- and neither New York or Silicon Valley made the cut
The conventional wisdom is that Silicon Valley is the only great place to found a tech startup. It's got great engineers, a huge network of financiers and advisors, and pleasant weather all year around.
But it's also ridiculously expensive. To buy a house and live comfortably in San Francisco, a person needs a salary of more than $180,000 per year -- more than double the salary needed to do the same in LA, according to a recent survey.
Where else should you settle?
To get an idea, Mattermark took a look through its funding data, focusing on the number of investment rounds closed and the total deal value. Then it looked to see which cities showed the biggest increase in deal action between 2014 and 2015. It also measured the average annual growth rate in deal rounds and value between 2012 and 2015.
Here are the fastest-growing startup scenes in the United States right now:
No. 10: Kansas City, MO. 31.56% deal growth in 2015, 9.61% average growth since 2012
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No. 9: Dallas, TX. 37.09% deal growth in 2015, 18.83% average growth since 2012
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No. 8: Washington, D.C. 38.16% deal growth in 2015, 21.31% average growth since 2012
Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
No. 7: Austin, TX. 63.73% deal growth in 2015, 21.46% average growth since 2012
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No. 6: Nashville, TN. 80.75% deal growth in 2015, 21.49% growth since 2012
Alamy
No. 5: Boulder, CO. 94.20% deal growth in 2015, 22.79% average growth since 2012
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No 4. Raleigh, NC. 110.28% deal growth in 2015, 26.29% average growth since 2012
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No. 3: Seattle, WA. 110.40% deal growth in 2015, 26.37% average growth since 2012
AP
No. 2: Salt Lake City, UT. 113.27% deal growth in 2015, 27.52% average growth since 2012
Shutterstock
No. 1: St. Louis, MO. 342.70% deal growth in 2015, 33.02% average growth since 2012
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So how about the San Francisco Bay Area? It was number one in number of deals by a huge margin, and also number one in deal value. But in terms of deal growth, it placed only No. 15 last year, and No. 16 on since 2012.
Matt Rosoff/Business Insider
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