The City 100 Index.
Capital57 have ranked the 100 middle-power cities most likely to define the next economic decade.
Two scores. One ranking.
Every city earns two scores. Maturity for today's readiness. Frontier for where it's heading. Together they form the blended ranking that drives the index.
Today's readiness.
Capital depth, regulatory clarity, talent density. The structural conditions that make a city deployable for institutional capital right now.
What's coming next.
Sovereign mandate, founder momentum, ecosystem velocity. The forward-looking indicators that price in tomorrow's value before today's market does.
One ranking.
Maturity and Frontier combine into a single Blended score. The Blended score determines the city's rank within the 100, and powers the regional and tier breakdowns inside the paper.
How a city earns its place.
Capital depth
Sovereign capital, private equity, venture funding, and credit availability per capita.
Talent density
Engineering, finance and policy talent, plus the depth of repeat-founder networks.
Sovereign mandate
National vision plans, fund-of-funds programmes and government capital allocation.
Regulatory clarity
Fund regimes, foreign direct investment treatment and ease of cross-border structuring.
Ecosystem activity
Founder formation, exit volume, capital recycling and second-generation entrepreneurship.
Infrastructure
Digital connectivity, energy reliability, transport and the foundations of scale.
Three cities. Different tiers. One thesis.
Tap a card to expand it.
Tashkent
Tashkent reflects extraordinary youth demographics, a government digital transformation programme among the most aggressive in Central Asia, and a startup ecosystem at the inflection point between formation and acceleration. Uzum, Uzbekistan's first unicorn, was valued at over $1 billion in 2023 and has demonstrated that venture-scale outcomes are achievable from Tashkent, creating the founder mythology that catalyses second-generation entrepreneurship.
Tashkent is Capital57's Central Asia Pioneer anchor. The combination of a large domestic population, the fastest-growing digital adoption in the region, the most generous SEZ structure in Central Asia, and a government actively seeking institutional venture partners creates an investment environment that reminds experienced investors of Southeast Asia in 2012. The Silk Road corridor from Tashkent to Almaty to Baku is becoming a legitimate geographic thesis as digital infrastructure connects markets that were physically proximate but commercially isolated for decades.
Government-backed tech zone with tax breaks and regulatory sandboxes.
The most ambitious digital infrastructure programme in Central Asia.
60% of nationals, the largest addressable young market in C. Asia.
Fifty founders from across the 100.
Hover any face to surface their company and sector. Faces shown are placeholders pending the 2026 release.
The Capital57
City Index.
32-page methodology paper. Full 100-city ranked list.
Free with your work email.