Business district of Yeouido in Seoul (Yonhap News)

By Yoo Yeon Gyeong

Seoul is considered the world's eighth-best city to launch a startup.

Startup Genome, a U.S. agency that rates startup ecosystems worldwide, said this in its annual Global Startup Ecosystem Report released on June 12, the Seoul Metropolitan Government announced on June 13.

The report ranks the startup ecosystems of 300 cities worldwide based on evaluations conducted from July 2022 to December last year based on six categories: knowledge accumulation, financing, ecosystem activity, market advances, creative experience and human resource cultivation, and transition based on artificial intelligence (AI).

Seoul received a perfect score of 10 in knowledge accumulation and financing and nine in ecosystem activity, market advances, and creative experience and human resource cultivation.

The capital's ranking went up a notch from ninth last year to set an all-time high on the list. The city said this was especially important as its position surpassed those of two top Asian cities for startups: Singapore (ninth) and Tokyo (11th).

No. 1 was Silicon Valley of the U.S., followed in order by New York, London, Tel Aviv (Israel), Boston and Beijing tied for fifth, and Los Angeles.

dusrud21@korea.kr