Best Cities to Start a Business in Virginia

As home to the Pentagon and boasting one of the most highly educated workforces, it is no surprise that Virginia has accrued a reputation as a great place to start a new business in a number of industries.

Most notably, the Federal Government and its employees provide a reliable customer base for cybersecurity startups. The state has more defense spending than any other, per capita, with defense and security firms in Virginia receiving over 15,000 government contracts. For those looking to open companies within this industry, there is no better destination than Virginia.

However, the Virginia economy is anything but one-dimensional. With the second-highest concentration of technology workers of any state and some of the fastest average internet speeds in the nation, Virginia provides a fantastically supportive climate for tech startups of all varieties, most notably in the biotech and health sectors of the state economy.

Funding is comparatively easy to come by, too. In 2016, Virginia was fourth in the nation, with $2.14 billion dollars shifted in venture capital investment.

Only cities with over 50,000 inhabitants are reported in the results. Some data had to be interpolated to the county level and extrapolated to all the cities in the county. We concentrated on the following metrics to obtain our ranking: Cost of living, Best state for business, Unemployment, Kauffman index, and Universities.