Connecting Global Startup Ecosystems

Driving along the highway through the birch tree forests and across the river Volga we reached our destination about 45 min after departing…

Driving along the highway through the birch tree forests and across the river Volga we reached our destination about 45 min after departing Kazan. If you build it they will come. The most ambitious project to build a tech hub like Silicon Valley I’ve ever seen, rising in a field next to the local ski mountain.

Construction is well underway at Innopolis near Kazan, Russia. The university has started its classes and companies are moving in.

Innopolis is a unicorn-size bet on building a startup ecosystem in Tatarstan, with resources flowing from the federal government that would be the envy of most cities I’ve visited. A tech city rising complete with robotics labs, an university with all classes taught in english and secondary schools to educate the faculties children — faculty they are recruiting from the best engineering schools in the world like Carnegie Mellon.

That’s one way to build a startup ecosystem.

I visited Lagos in July, 2016 and had the pleasure of meeting entrepreneurs working at ccHub.

A continent away, I travel across the Third Mainland Bridge past the houses raised on stilts above the lagoon to Yaba, which is ground zero of the Lagos startup scene. Visiting ccHub and Idea, two coworking spaces in Yaba I meet a startup called LifeBank, a company tracking blood supplies at hospitals and responding to requests for blood via Twitter.

I spent a week in Nigeria learning about the rising startup ecosystem that is booming thanks from the mobile phone connectivity and dealing with challenges that we take for granted, like a reliable power grid. A month after my visit to Lagos and Yaba, Mark Zuckerberg was there, keen to see what is going on in Lagos after making an investment in Andela, a local startup.

Mark Zuckerberg visits ccHub in August, 2016 and admires the view over Yaba, the hub of the Lagos, Nigeria tech ecosystem.

Innovation is happening everywhere and cities around the world are working to build their startup ecosystems to develop talent, attract investment, and provide growth opportunities for the next generation of technology companies that will power economic development in the years ahead.

The world is flat. The internet connects anyone to the world. Information is unlocked and fully distributed.

Conversations I have with founders in Lagos about lean startup methodologies and customer development are the same ones I have in New Orleans and Palo Alto — there is no information advantage anymore.

More than ever, startups are competing for attention. Investors, talent, customers — building product isn’t the difficult part anymore, breaking through the noise is.

Connecting ecosystems is the first step in learning from each other, finding collaboration opportunities and ways to do business together. A first step is getting a 30,000 ft view on what is going on around the world.

That’s why I’m hosting the first Global Rising Startup Ecosystem Roundtable at Web Summit in Lisbon on November 8th.

Ecosystem leaders from around the world will take place in this meeting of the minds to share best practices and learn from each other. We already have leaders representing cities like Lagos, Nigeria, Prague, Kazan, Russia, Australia, Shenzhen, China, and more participating.

The event will be keynoted by Jean-Francois Gauthier from the Startup Genome Project, a global effort to benchmark the factors that drive ecosystem growth.

Want to participate? We’re looking for cities around the world to join us November 8, 2016 in Lisbon for the Global Rising Ecosystem Roundtable. This event is invite only, so if you’d like to nominate yourself or an ecosystem leader to attend, please email chris@lp.co.