Even as India continues to improve its annual Ease of Doing Business ranking, its startup ecosystem appears to be losing steam. According to the global innovation mapping and research company StartupBlink, which gathers local data of every country to rank their startup ecosystem based on the quality of startups, business environment coupled with the quantity.

India has moved down from 17th position in 2019 to 23rd this year out of 100 countries. The third-largest ecosystem – India, in terms of number of technology startups, has been ranked even behind emerging ecosystems such as Estonia, Lithuania, Brazil, Denmark etc. The ranking has been led by the US, the UK, and Israel while China has improved its rank by 13 spots to 14th position this year and Japan stood at 21st spot.

Moreover, among the top 100 startup cities, only four India cities were captured. Bengaluru (down by three ranks to 14th position), New Delhi (up by three spots to 15th position), Mumbai (improved by seven spots to 22nd position), and Hyderabad (falling 21 ranks to disappointing 96th position). Last year, seven cities were ranked in the top 100 list versus four this year.