for all chat As for San Francisco's decline, data repeatedly shows that the Bay Area, including the city, is still the best place for venture-backed startups.
Startups based in the Gulf region will siphon $90 billion in VC investment in 2024, accounting for 57% of global venture funding spent last year, new figures released Tuesday showed. By Crunchbase display
In 2024, OpenAI, headquartered in San Francisco, was apparently the mothership, both spawning an AI startup industry nearby. Its own deep-pocket startup fundand between VC dollars scooped it up for themselves. But others include: San Francisco's Databricks and its A record-breaking $10 billion fund; Elon Musk's xAI, which raised $12 billion in two rounds Last year and Move into OpenAI immediately Old headquarters of the San Francisco Mission District; Mountain View's Waymo and its $5.6 billion Series C; Anthropologist of San Francisco, which raised more than $8 billion In 2024; As well as the big raise in 2024 from San Francisco AI scale And Confusion.
and, As we previously reported, This is not just the case. This is a result of the area's dominance in AI, the biggest technology of 2024, as well as being home to big tech (Google, Nvidia, Salesforce, etc.) and a long-standing startup infrastructure there — from Y Combinator to VC-land on Sand Hill Road.
This self-fulfilling cycle shows no sign of flagging in 2025, as the Bay Area still offers the highest concentration of skilled tech workers. According to Signalfire data, about 49% of all Big Tech engineers (often the startup founders of tomorrow) and 27% of startup engineers are located there.
With such a high concentration of everything from financiers to engineers, it's easier to meet the people needed to build a startup, say founders moving to San Francisco in 2024. Also the customer pool is better,” Anh-Tho Chuong, co-founder and CEO of open source billing platform Lago, previously told TechCrunch.