Data Reveals 🌎’s Best Cities To Become An Entrepreneur

Where to Succeed As a Young Entrepreneur: Revealed

Using the Forbes 30 Under 30 lists from Europe, North America, Russia, Asia and Africa, the business-comparison experts at Bionic conducted research into the world’s greatest young entrepreneurs.

Bionic looked at the industry, city, country, university-education, and gender of each young entrepreneur. It was able to identify the best places to be a young entrepreneur depending on your industry and gender, and which industries and universities are best for career success.

Overall

Countries, cities and universities

Most Popular Industries For Young Entrepreneurs Overall

Rank	Most Popular Industries Overall	Number of Forbes Under 30s
1	Technology	209
2	Manufacturing	116
3	Marketing and Media	115
4	Retail and E-Commerce	100
5	Social Impact	96
6	Healthcare and Science	90
7	Arts and Culture	74
8	Energy	69
9	Finance and Venture Capital	65
10	Education	38

Most Popular Cities for Young Entrepreneurs Overall

Rank	Most Popular Cities	Number of Forbes Under 30s
1	London	115
2	New York	106
3	San Francisco	88
4	Moscow	51
5	Los Angeles	39
6	Stockholm	17
7	Toronto	16
8	Berlin	10
9	Boston	10
10	Chicago	10

Despite North America being by far the most popular in providing Forbes Under 30 candidates (5/10 of the top cities were from North America.), London was the most popular city for young entrepreneurs to succeed in. Many candidates in the North America, Asia and Russia lists also lived in London.

Best Countries For Young Entrepreneurs Overall

Rank	Most Popular Countries	Number of Forbes Under 30s
1	United States	428
2	United Kingdom	145
3	Russia	109
4	India	81
5	China	22
6	Germany	21
7	South Korea	17
8	Singapore	16
9	Japan	15
10	Sweden	15

Best Universities for Young Entrepreneurs Overall

Rank	Most Popular Universities	Number of Forbes Under 30s	Country
1	Stanford University	47	United States
2	Indian Institute of Technology	23	India
3	Harvard University	22	United States
4	University of California	22	United States
5	Imperial College London	17	United Kingdom
6	Yale University	13	United States
7	Moscow State University	13	Russia
8	University of Cambridge	12	United Kingdom
9	Colombia University	12	United States
10	University of Pennsylvania	11	United States

Indian Institute of Technology was the best university in Asia to go to for producing successful entrepreneurs.

Stanford was the best USA university

Imperial College London was the best UK university

14% were either not university-educated, or we could not find education information on them. The percentage of non-university educated Under-30s is likely less than this.

6 out of 10 universities were from North America

Gender

Male-Female Split By Region

Male %	Female %	Region
70%	30%	North America
73%	27%	Africa
63%	37%	Europe
83%	27%	Asia
67%	33%	Russia

Rank	Industries With Most Females	Percentage of Forbes Under 30s
1	Arts & Culture	57%
2	Hospitality/Food and Drink	41%
3	Social Impact	37%
4	Retail and E-Commerce	34%
5	Media and Marketing	31%
6	Education	31%
7	Finance and Venture Capital	31%
8	Energy	23%
9	Manufacturing	20%
10	Technology	20%

Overall, just 30% of the Forbes Under 30s were female. Average age for young entrepreneurs is 28 – this didn’t differ between men and women.

Regional

Europe

. 37% of young entrepreneurs were female

. About 62% young entrepreneurs are male

. 50% of all European young entrepreneurs were from the UK

. 39% were from London

. 85>% were university-educated

. UK and London were the most popular places for every European industry

. Germany was second most popular place for young entrepreneurs (7%), followed by Netherlands and Sweden (4%)

. Average age for success in Europe is 27

Most popular universities in Europe were all UK universities:

Rank	University	Number of Forbes Under 30s
1	Imperial College London	12
2	University of Oxford	11
3	University of Oxford	11
4	University College London	9
5	University of Warwick	7

North America

. Most popular cities were New York (92), San Francisco (88), Los Angeles (39) Brooklyn (14), and Boston (10), Berlin (10) and Chicago (10)

. 30% of young entrepreneurs were female

. About 96>% were university-educated

. Technology was by far the most popular industry, followed by social impact

. Average age for success was just 22

Rank	Most Popular Universities	Number of Forbes Under 30s
1	Stanford University	47
2	Harvard University	22
3	University of California	22
4	Yale University	13
5	Colombia University

Asia

. 17% were female

. 41% were from India, 11% were from China, and 8% were from Singapore and South Korea

. Average age for success is 26

. 23 (11%) went to Indian Institute of Technology, making it by far the most popular Asian university. The National University of Singapore (3%) was the second most popular, but the remaining entrepreneurs came from a more mixed range

. Technology was most popular (45%) industry, followed by Science and Healthcare (14%)

Africa

. 40% came from South Africa, and 20% came from Nigeria

. 20% worked in Johannesburg

. Arts & Culture was the most popular industry here for young entrepreneurs

. 73% were male, 27% female

. Average age for success was 27

Russia

There were twice as many arts & culture entrepreneurs in Russia as there were in any other category. This includes young entrepreneurs working in industries like fashion and design, art, and theatre

Average age was 25

33% of entrepreneurs were female

Moscow is best city to succeed in for young entrepreneurs in Russia

12% of candidates went to Moscow State University, while 10% went to Moscow Higher School of Economics.