Dallas Makes Inc.’s Surging Cities List for Second Year in a Row

Inc. released its second annual Surge Cities list with Dallas coming in at No. 29 after last year’s ranking of No. 17.

The list is created by Inc.’s partner Startup Genome, which aggregates publicly available data along with insights from the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. The scoring system is based on three traits Startup Genome described as determining a surge city: growth, opportunity, and innovation.

Criteria used for the report includes the rate of entrepreneurship, high-growth business density, wage and population growth, job creation, early-stage funding deals, and net business creation.

Inc.’s ranking of Dallas noted, “this Texas hotspot is loaded with high art and high culture. These lifestyle draws combine with low business and housing costs to make Dallas attractive to entrepreneurs and to accelerators, such as Health Wildcatters.”

It also dubbed Dallas-Fort Worth a “job creation machine” that is “hard to beat.” The region added more jobs than both Austin and Houston last year with 70,000 additions, and Inc. called out giants like American Airlines and AT&T for being headquartered here. Plus, the Uber news announced earlier this year that it was opening its second largest hub outside of San Francisco.

Dallas came in at No. 12 for population growth, No. 12 for high-growth company density, and No. 24 for job creation.

“Inc. has long believed in the alchemy of entrepreneurial innovation and community,” Inc. acting editor-in-chief Jon Fine said in a statement.

Both Fine and Arnobio Morelix, Startup Genome’s chief innovation officer, emphasized that new business growth isn’t limited to the usual major metropolitan area suspects.

“For startup founders, local connectedness—the quality and number of relationships you have with other founders, investors, and experts—is what really jumpstarts a young business’s revenue growth. Matter of fact, highly connected founders grow their revenue twice as fast as those with few connections,” said Morelix.

Inc.’s Winter 2019 issue is dedicated to the Surge Cities list and plans to feature examples of thriving young companies across the U.S. as well as backstories on several startup founders’ success journeys.