These cities have tech, capital, and markets that are ideal for female entrepreneurs.
If you're a female entrepreneur and have been thinking about launching your own business venture, now is the perfect time to get started. Flexibility, ownership, and financial security are just a few of the reasons why so many women are venturing into the world of self-employment.
This hasn’t always been the case. In fact, go back just 10 years and the ratio between male and female startup founders was much more lopsided. Now the number of female entrepreneurs that have gone into business has been growing at a percentage of at least double that of their male counterparts.
Women are breaking boundaries and pushing themselves out of their safety zones by using their entrepreneurial talents to break into male dominated territories.
But where is the best city for a female entrepreneur to set up business?
The Dell index evaluates 50 global cities on their capacity to foster the growth of women-led businesses based on the access they offer to capital, technology, talent, culture and markets. Within these categories, the index explored a range of indicators which highlighted their availability to female business owners.
Taking the WE Cities Index’s overall top spot was New York, followed by the Bay Area in California. Completing the index’s top five were U.S. city Boston in fourth place and Stockholm, Sweden in fifth. The UK capital pulled ahead of locations such as Boston, Singapore, Berlin and Dublin and was beaten by only New York and San Francisco.
As it turns out, some cities are better than others at unlocking the potential of women entrepreneurs. But even top-rated New York received only 62.9 points out of 100. There is plenty of room for improvement. Men still own 1.5 times as many businesses, have 3.5 times as many employees, and generate 4.5 times more revenue.
What these cities are doing however, is inspiring today’s female entrepreneurs to grab hold of the opportunities, continuing the momentum and prove that women can be valuable assets in the business world.
Find a full list of the world’s top cities for female entrepreneurs here.