Las Vegas is on the rise in the U.S. and world startup ecosystem rankings.
In fact, the city ranked No. 2 globally in startup community activity from April 2025 to April 2026, according to StartupBlink, a global startup ecosystem research platform that ranks the startup ecosystems of more than 100 countries and 1,500 cities worldwide.
Las Vegas ranked No. 23 in the U.S., climbing four spots from last year, and ranked No. 67 globally, rising 17 spots, in StartupBlink’s Global Startup Ecosystem Index 2026.
“The startup ecosystem here in the Las Vegas Valley is red hot,” said former UNLV president Len Jessup, managing director of Desert Forge Ventures, a local venture capital firm that invests in several startups at Roseman Bioventures, a massive life sciences incubator at Roseman University.
The local ecosystem enjoyed 36.8 percent growth, one of the strongest performances among the U.S. top 100 ecosystems, according to StartupBlink. The platform, with headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, launched in 2017 and builds its index using hundreds of thousands of data points processed by an algorithm that takes into account several dozen parameters that comprise three subscores for quantity, quality and business environment. The sum of these three subscores makes up each ecosystem’s total score.
“The rankings are calculated using a consistent, data-driven algorithm that is applied equally to all ecosystems,” a StartupBlink spokesperson said in an email to the Review Journal. “We measure three main things: the amount of startup activity, such as the number of startups, investors, accelerators, coworking spaces, and startup events; the real success and impact of that activity, such as funding, unicorns, exits, startup employees, web traction, and major global startup companies; and the business environment supporting entrepreneurs, such as ease of doing business, taxes, access to funding, internet freedom, banking, and market size.”
Startup community activity is a category within the index framework.
“It explains one specific part of an ecosystem’s strength: how active and engaged the local startup community is,” the spokesperson said. “We measure it through startup- and technology-related meetups and events.”
Las Vegas’ No. 2 global ranking in startup community activity was driven, in part, by hosting world-class events like the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
The San Francisco Bay area tops the list of U.S. startup ecosystems, followed by New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Austin, Texas, Seattle, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Miami and San Diego.
According to the platform, Las Vegas is home to 682 startups, making up 1 percent of all startups in the U.S. over the past year.
TensorWave, a Las Vegas-based cloud computing startup, announced Wednesday it raised a Nevada-record $350 million in Series B funding at a post-money valuation of $1.55 billion to expand its data center global artificial-intelligence infrastructure footprint.
“I’m proud that we’re able to create a company like this from Southern Nevada,” said Piotr Tomasik, a UNLV graduate and TensorWave co-founder, president and COO. “It’s a really great thing for diversifying the economy and keeping the tech growing.”
Contact reporter Todd Dewey at tdewey@reviewjournal.com. Follow @tdewey33 on X.
