Top 10 places for your tech startup to grow and succeed

The logical conclusion to begin this list with. Palo Alto is a fantastic place for tech startups, being a charter city that is constantly looking forward to helping startups move up in the world and develop their ideas more articulately.

Asides from being part of the Silicon Valley region, it's a place full of investment in startups, trusting that this will be the place to raise and nourish them success. EM360 might or might not also know the CIO of this wonderful city, someone particularly in charge of the flows of information there and who understands the difficult process of getting a startup up and running. We are of course referring to our advisory board member Jonathan Reichental.

Here's a quick list of reasons why Malta would be an incredible opportunity for anyone looking to get a startup running: government support is growing for startups, the culture there embraces a little competition, it sits in the middle of three continents and, lastly, Malta is becoming huge for blockchain. So much so with blockchain that you may or may not find yourself at their summit this November.

But it's also the little things, like waking up to sunny days, not being worried about long commutes and getting to be with incredible locals in the same island is the kind of stuff that keeps people in Malta when it comes to finding a place to settle down. In this regard you get the Silicon Valley atmosphere without twice the stress.

Another fantastic city with a culture that backs all business-minded dreamers, Melbourne is the place to be for startups. This city is not only community-minded, but keen to harness human social capital and happy to provide a space for asylum seekers and marginalised communities to thrive.

Although Melbourne leads the nation in entrepreneurship and innovation, it is still somewhat marked by older companies being afraid of standing for certain ethics and values. This is, however, a major opportunity as more and more citizens want to invest money in businesses that stand up for the right things. Melbourne is a whole new ground for people with strong values and beliefs to get their startups going there.

Toronto is quickly becoming the next Silicon Valley. It is a beacon of cultural inclusion for many tech workers who are reconciling their restrictions from entering the US due to Trump's strict immigration policies, it's a world leading innovation hub and, most of all, it has a cool nickname: "The Six".

Toronto is sided for having a deep pool of top-tier talent as well as diversity, with strong governmental support behind the initiatives of most and access to funding as well. The level of Venture Capital investment is also a high and impressive one, worth looking out for in case that is exactly what your company needs.

For those that don't know, Austin is full of great opportunities, having grown to the point where said opportunities have to be organised in an online community for them. Built In Austin allows locals and foreigners to peer into the Texan-style startup life down in Austin, getting a glimpse of marketing, developers, jobs and what kind of startups are trending today.

Last year was a pivotal year for many startups, while major tech giants also found themselves recently situating their offices in the area. CEO of Biz2Credit, Rohit Arora, claimed: "Texas is a very business-friendly state, with a good lifestyle and good weather, is attracting a lot of young people to move there."

Let's start with the basics, there's a new startup founded almost every 20 minutes in Berlin, with the industry set to produce 100,000 new jobs by 2020. On top of this, Berlin is easily cheaper than most of its European counterparts, meaning less pressure, less costs and less reasons to not want to be at work.

As many of the other cities here, their national government is slowly beginning to recognise Berlin for the startup headquarters that it is, meaning more and more funding is expected very soon for the city. Former mayor Klaus Wowereit had mentioned during his mayorship that the council were eyeing the historic Tempelhof airport buildings as startup hubs.

A giant city with its own "Silicon Roundabout" (the area surrounding Old Street, which just so happens to include EM360, London is oddly quaint for a startup. It is one of the most expensive cities to live in and gearing up to prepare for Brexit while settling down from GDPR, but hey, the man (or woman) who can dominate a London dinner table can dominate the world, as Oscar Wilde once said. This particular dinner table happens to be the AI capital of Europe, according to mayor Sadiq Khan.

There is a massive STEM culture in London that means many people from abroad coming in with their small amount of experience and big dreams. Whether it's in technology, science or mathematics, people manage to find a way to implement their understanding of their world into businesses here and thrive successfully. Further, London is a global financial hub, where dozens of the world's top financial institutions comfortably sit.

With quite a couple of articles written about how Chicago might take over as the new tech hub, it is not a city worth overlooking for anyone interested in the future of their business. A new KPMG report lists Chicago as a contender to be the international hub for innovation, citing the windy city's talent and infrastructure.

Chicago is also listed as one of the best in the country in terms of growth of tech jobs. So it's no surprise to hear high profile companies like Salesforce, Google, CareerBuilder, Groupon, Motorla and many more have settled around there. In terms of culture, Chicago was listed as the top place for "no nonsense" leaders, which means you know you'll get your money's worth when you're in deep-dish with the tech boys!

Tel Aviv has the highest number of startups per capita in the world. It is the place to be for young entrepreneurs: There is hot sun, hot deals and never-ending opportunities for investment in your company. In particular, Tel Aviv gives the advantage of being situated somewhere metropolitan enough for industrial and technological innovations, but close enough to the countryside to be the perfect place for agricultural products. No side of the tech industry can really escape the comfort afforded by locating themselves in Tel Aviv.

Many tech companies have been given the opportunity to rise up to prominence, including the messaging provider ICQ and the Intel subsidiary Mobileye. All of these fantastic contributions to the economy have lead to the Israeli Minister of Economy and Industry, Eli Cohen, nicknaming his country: "The nation of innovation".

Think of how many companies have come out of Sweden altogether... IKEA, Volvo, Electolux, Ericsson, H&M, ABBA doesn't technically count as a company but God knows they were all about their money, money, money.

Stockholm alone is considered the second most prolific tech hub in the world on a per capita basis, with more billion-dollar tech companies per capita than any other city besides San Francisco. Home to 20,000 startups, over a billion Euro was raised by tech companies in the country, making it a very comfortable spot to generate capital without constantly scratching your head over local competition.