Now live: GSER 2026 reveals who's winning the AI era

The global innovation landscape is fracturing. Launched today at VivaTech Paris, this year's Global Startup Ecosystem Report (GSER 2026) — drawing on data from 5.5 million+ startups across 350+ ecosystems — shows a world dividing into ecosystems that are capturing the AI moment, and those that are not.

But this is not simply a story about U.S. and China dominance. Beneath the headline numbers, there is a more actionable finding: ecosystems that have moved deliberately on AI are pulling ahead. And those that haven't are quickly falling behind.

We'll be unpacking the details in two virtual launch sessions this week — details below.

After two years of contraction, global startup funding stabilized and grew in 2025. Late-stage funding rebounded to around $210 billion. Exit value rose 164% year-on-year to nearly $800 billion. Series A funding is up. Seed funding is tracking toward 100-130% growth over 2024 levels once database lag is accounted for.

But the recovery is not evenly distributed — and that's the more important story. AI-Native startup funding grew 218% from 2021 to 2025. Over the same period, tech funding overall shrank 36%. The Ecosystem Value of AI-Native firms has increased 969% since GSER 2021. The scale of that divergence points to something more fundamental than a funding cycle: AI is not just another sector — it is now the operating logic of the startup economy and it is concentrating value faster than any previous technology wave.

The more significant opportunity for most ecosystems lies in a different layer: startups building on top of existing models, rather than competing to build the next Anthropic. Israel is a clear example: a thriving builder ecosystem extracting real economic value from third-party models, without racing for foundational model dominance.

Widespread adoption of AI at the economy level has transformative potential — and that race is still very much open.

AI-Native startups are being funded substantially faster – and with substantially larger rounds – than the rest of tech. The ability of ecosystems to enable this increased funding velocity is one of the key factors which is setting the leaders apart from the rest.

This divergence is already reshaping the competitive order — and the rankings make that visible.

Silicon Valley, New York City, and London still hold the top three positions. The change in rankings is broadly a picture of Asian ecosystems falling slightly, while North American ecosystems rise: Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, and New York City, between them, captured two thirds of the entire rise in global Ecosystem Value since the GSER 2025.

Within the Top 20, Seattle, Toronto-Waterloo, and Austin all made dramatic jumps upwards, with the former now entering the Top 10. One of the driving forces with Toronto-Waterloo has been the Vector Institute – the ecosystem’s AI research-to-commercialization engine since 2017, which has helped produce AI unicorns such as Cohere and Waabi.

In other regions, Stockholm became Europe's standout performer of the year – helped by the IPO of ‘decacorn’ Klarna, one of a number of large Fintech deals seen during the year.

But the picture is more sobering in some regions. Other than Singapore, all Asian ecosystems in the Top 40 slipped (though Wuxi rose to enter the Top 40 for the first time). Vancouver slipped four places. Mumbai dropped out of the Top 40, landing at #1 in the Emerging Ecosystems ranking.

In Latin America, São Paolo remains the leading ecosystem – and the only one to make it into the global Top 40; most others fell. In Oceania, MENA, and sub-Saharan Africa, the picture is mixed – a few ecosystems made double-digit leaps in the ranking, but many others were overtaken.

These movements aren't random. They reflect choices — about AI investment, capital strategy, and how seriously ecosystem leaders treated the last two years as a window to act. The full picture of who rose and who fell is in the report.

The gap between leading and lagging ecosystems is widening with every funding cycle. GSER 2026 shows exactly where that gap is opening — and what the ecosystems pulling ahead are doing differently. Don't wait to find out where you stand. Get the full, free report now.

Didn’t make it to Paris for our launch? You can still get key insights direct from our Founder and CEO. JF Gauthier is hosting two virtual sessions this week to walk through the GSER 2026 findings live — the rankings, the data, and what it means for your ecosystem. 

This is your chance to put the findings in context, hear JF's analysis firsthand, and join a global conversation with ecosystem leaders from around the world.

Register now to secure your spot.

Session 1: Thursday, June 18 at 5:00 PM CEST
Register: https://luma.com/pxnkaux7

Session 2: Friday, June 19 at 8:00 AM CEST
Register: https://luma.com/nwrfmr4t