Dubai ranks 28th on Nestpicks Best Startup Cities index for 2017

According to the Startup Cities Index carried out by NestPick, a property finder for students and people across the world, Dubai has been ranked as the 29^th most dynamic startup city in the world, amongst a list of 85 cities.  Dubai in this Index ranked higher than more established startup cities such as New York, London and Tokyo.

The ranking carried out by NestPick, is divided into five categories: Startup Ecosystem, Salary, Social Security & Benefits, Cost of Living, and Quality of Life. According to the index, Dubai scores the highest in the world when it comes to the Income Tax Score, with 5 over 5 on the parameter. The high score is explained by the lack of income tax. Dubai also scores 4.72 when it comes to Safety and 4.54 on Healthcare quality.   When it comes to financial compensation, an experienced techie at a startup in Dubai earns an average of $76,086, which is the 14th best pay in the world for such professionals.

According to the Q1 Funding Report Card of 2017, UAE took 30 disclosed deals valued at $230 million during the first 6 months, whereby the top 5 deals have a combined value of more than $200 million all having their headquarters in Dubai.

In the index those countries that outranked Dubai included Singapore which scored number one, followed by Helsinki, San Francisco, Berlin and others. Last year Nepstick ranked the top cities for Millennial to live in and Dubai was not in the top 50. The criteria was almost similar to this year’ startup cities ranking so it seems that either Dubai has risen highly in the past year due to the increased efforts by its government or other countries have fallen back. Whatever the case, Dubai as a city is opening its arms to startups worldwide be they in IoT, Blockchain, AI or digital commerce.