Good question! Lots of cities all over the world are trying to find an answer to that. And it is much more complicated than it looks at the first glance - there are many different problems that need to be solved for startups to grow.

Surely, funding is very important and existing startup ecosystem (meetups, incubators etc) is crucial as well. But since we at Teleport are helping smart people move, we are also hearing from them what are the most important issues for them. This is the top4 and it has some surprising elements:

1. Low pollution 2. Low living costs 3. Low crime 4. Tolerance

While low costs and crime are very understandable, pollution and tolerance could be a bit surprising. But that shows that startups want to grow in cities where their employees can live a good life - it's safe, it's green and the level of tolerance is high. So focus needs to be much wider than just the capital.

Different cities have very different challenges, here is the comparison of London and Berlin: https://teleport.org/compare/berlin-and-london

While the level of startups and capital is surely higher in London (the best in Europe), the environment and living cost are better in Berlin - every city must find their own marketing story.