A recent Forbes article highlights the unbalanced concentration of venture capital money and startup companies across major U.S. regions. Notably, seventy-six percent of venture capital money in 2017 was concentrated in California, New York, and Massachusetts. In these regions, like major technology hub, Silicon Valley, the costs associated with starting a business have skyrocketed. The dominance of these areas, some believe, are creating barriers for investors that aren’t quite at the capital level of Apple, Google, Facebook, and other high-dollar companies.

With the goal of distributing the “startup wealth” in mind, Forbes aimed to understand and quantify the cities that are expected to begin housing startups more heavily due to lower costs. The methodology involved first eliminating the ten metro areas that have garnered the most venture capital funding over the past three years. Forbes then compared metrics from Kauffman Foundation, Moody’s Analytics, and PitchBook’s data on the 30 largest metro areas related to costs, education levels, college presence, entrepreneurship rates, working-age population growth, and venture capital investments. According to the research, both Columbus and Atlanta, two cities in which Sealy & Company have major holdings, made the list.

Leading the list at number one is Columbus, OH. Columbus has established a “robust startup culture thanks in part to the role of venture funds for some of the city’s biggest companies.” Because of the available financing from large companies like Nationwide, Columbus has retained post-graduation talent from local and nearby universities. Additionally, the cost of doing business is two percent below the national average, further attracting startups. Similarly, Atlanta’s cost of doing business is seven percent below the national average, and its rate of entrepreneurship ranks among the highest in the U.S. Atlanta startups had a record 2017 with $1.2 billion in VC investments.

Other cities that made the list included St. Louis, Denver, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Portland, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and Charlotte.