Tracking venture capital data to pinpoint the next US startup hot spots – TechCrunch

Chicago and Minneapolis still lead Midwest rankings, but Indy raced ahead of Pittsburgh

TechCrunch spends time each quarter covering the startup markets of the world. We look at aggregate numbers and dig in more closely to areas like Latin America, Asia, Europe, Africa and more.

But sometimes key data points are lost in even those more specific venture capital data dives. For example, while it’s good to consider Europe’s venture capital and startup tallies each quarter, we also need to compare, say, France and Germany to truly understand what is driving results on the continent.

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The same is true in some countries as well when we more closely consider local venture activity. The North American market is perhaps the most active startup region in the world. But if we simply take a look at its largest single input — venture capital funding of American startups — we’d miss critical nuance. So we have to go inside the United States to fully grok its activity. Is the Boston area’s software-and-biotech focus doing better than, say, the Bay Area’s startup machine?