Best Cities to Start a Business in Kentucky

Kentucky is an example of a state capitalizing on the decentralization of the tech industry. The cities of Lexington and Louisville are home to dozens of exciting startups in a range of fields.

These young businesses are helped along by a number of incubators and accelerators in the state, including Louisville’s XLerateHealth, which specializes in healthcare companies and offers programs like an intensive three-month startup “boot camp”.

Because of its success in helping companies grow and prosper, it was named one of the top fifty accelerators in the nation twice in a row by the Small Business Administration. An increase in tech entrepreneurship in the Lexington area has also raised the amount of total investment capital available to locally based companies. One investment group, The Bluegrass Angels, maintains several funds devoted to financing local businesses.

Kentucky’s affordability and comfortable way of life contributes to its growing reputation as a state favorable to startups.

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.