DFW rivalry

Fort Worth edges out Dallas in new ranking of best cities for startups

Dallas appears at No. 15 among the country’s 20 best cities for startups.

Photo by Joe Daniel Price/Getty Images

Often, Fort Worth folks feel like they're living in the shadow of Dallas. But a new ranking of the best U.S. cities for startups flips the script by putting Dallas in Fort Worth’s shadow.

In the ranking, produced by commercial real estate platform CommercialCafé, Fort Worth appears at No. 12 among the country’s 20 best cities for startups. The city is three notches above Dallas (No. 15) and seven notches above closer neighbor Arlington (No. 19).

“Fort Worth is coming into its own and embracing the startup scene,” CommercialCafé declares.

CommercialCafé’s analysis looked at the 50 most populous cities in the U.S. For each city, CommercialCafé examined these data points: growth rate for solo businesses, startup survival rate, startup density, startup growth rate, success of Kickstarter fundraising campaigns, education levels, growth in tech employment, wage growth, rent-to-income ratio, coworking costs, and presence of millennials.

Among the factors in Fort Worth’s favor were a low rent-to-income ratio of 15 percent (versus 16 percent in Dallas), tech employment growth of 25 percent (versus 20 percent in Dallas), and millennial population growth of 11 percent (versus 10 percent in Dallas).

Still, Dallas held its own at No. 15. “Ranking third for [coworking] cost affordability and fifth for rent-to-income ratio, Dallas is a place where a tech salary can stretch a long way,” CommercialCafé notes.

As part of an economic development blueprint released in 2017, the City of Fort Worth strives to ensure “that expanding startups see the city as hospitable to their continuing growth.” That includes expanding networking opportunities for entrepreneurs in Fort Worth.

“Communities with a highly engaged, connected, and collaborative startup scene have a built-in advantage in the global competition for high-growth business development,” the city’s economic development plan says.

To help burnish its startup-welcoming attitude and promote tourism, Fort Worth — now the 13th largest city in the U.S., climbing ahead of Columbus, Ohio, and San Francisco in population last year — sent a contingent to this year’s South by Southwest confab in Austin. By contrast, Dallas had no official presence at SXSW.

“Fort Worth is a bit of a blank slate for folks,” said Robert Jameson, president and CEO of Visit Fort Worth, told Texas Monthly of Cowtown’s SXSW blitz this year. “This is an opportunity with people from all around the world, all across the country, to be able to give them a sense of what opportunities exist, what the spirit and energy is for the city of Fort Worth.”

Jameson added that Fort Worth boosters at SXSW were spreading “a message of innovation and inclusion and creativity and technology and inspiration … .”

At No. 1 in the CommercialCafé ranking was Austin. Among the standout statistics for Austin were success of Kickstarter fundraising campaigns (26 percent), tech employment growth (37 percent), millennials’ share of the population (31 percent), startup density (17.9 percent), and growth of solo businesses (3.9 percent).

One way Fort Worth hopes to emulate Austin’s startup success is by mirroring the popularity of SXSW’s interactive conference, a premier tech event that has helped forge Austin’s status as a global tech hub.

“Elevating the Main Street Fort Worth Arts Festival to incorporate tech-related elements that draw an international audience can serve as a vehicle for the attraction of artists, graphic designers, and related creative individuals to Fort Worth,” the city’s economic development plan says.

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New money

Texas Stock Exchange launches trading on 'Y'all Street' in Dallas

Photo by Oren Elbaz on Unsplash

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Two-step aside, New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. The Dallas-based Texas Stock Exchange, nicknamed Y’all Street, just kicked off live trading with five stocks for now — and with lots of Lone Star ambition.

“The Texas Stock Exchange aims to revitalize competition for [stock] issuers, establish the premier venue for listings, and create a world-class trading platform for all market participants,” the exchange says in a fact sheet.

The exchange — whose Texas-influenced nickname is a nod to New York City’s Wall Street — has collected at least $275 million in investments. The roughly 90 financial backers of TXSE include Bank of America, BlackRock, Charles Schwab, Citadel Securities, Dell Family Office, Fortress, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase.

Representatives of TXSE couldn’t be reached for comment. On its website, the exchange calls itself “the most well-capitalized equities exchange to ever be approved” by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Not to be outdone, NYSE has launched Dallas-based NYSE Texas and Nasdaq has expanded its presence in Dallas.

Y’all Street adds to Dallas-Fort Worth’s rising status as a major hub for financial services, with The Wall Street Journal naming North Texas the country’s second biggest financial hub after New York City. Among the biggest DFW players in financial services are:

Financial services provider Charles Schwab
Banking company Comerica
Auto lender Santander Consumer USA
Banking company Texas Capital Bancshares
Lender GM Financial
Investment bank Goldman Sachs
Financial services provider Fidelity
Banking conglomerate JPMorgan Chase
Megabank Wells Fargo

“A homegrown national exchange means more jobs, more investment, and more growth opportunities for businesses and communities across the Lone Star State,” Gabriela von zur Muehlen, senior vice president and chief policy officer at the Texas Association of Business, told The Texas Tribune.

In a move that will further elevate DFW’s status as a financial powerhouse, Goldman Sachs is building an 800,000-square-foot corporate campus near the American Airlines Center. The campus, with an initial price tag of $500 million, will be able to accommodate more than 5,000 employees when it opens in 2028; it’ll be Goldman Sachs’ largest office outside New York City.

Driven by DFW, the financial services sector now plays a massive role in Texas’ status as the Financial Capital of America, as declared by Gov. Greg Abbott.

Bulent Temel, an associate professor of practice in economics at the University of Texas at San Antonio, told Texas Standard that TXSE “is going to boost the credibility of the Texas economy.”

Texas’ estimated gross domestic product (GDP), a yardstick for the size of an economy, climbed to a record-setting $2.9 trillion in 2025, making it the state with the second highest GDP after California. DFW’s estimated GDP in 2023 stood at $744.6 billion, eclipsing the GDP of many countries.

“The center of gravity for American capitalism is now headquartered in the Boom Belt,” Abbott proclaimed in April, referring to an 11-state region (including Texas) in the South and Southeast that’s seeing tremendous economic and population growth. “The Texas Stock Exchange is the natural extension of that capitalism. It ensures that capital markets will reflect the quadrant that is driving American growth.”

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