North American cities still dominate a list of the top 10 startup ecosystems, conducted by the Startup Genome, although Tel Aviv ranked No. 2 behind Silicon Valley. The Israeli city beat out Los Angeles, Seattle, New York, Boston and Chicago based on its population of software engineers and access to venture capital.

In determining each city’s rating, the Startup Genome used eight main criteria: Startup Output, funding, company performance, talent, support infrastructure, entrepreneurial mindset, trendsetting tendencies and ecosystem differentiation.

As Bloomberg reports, Tel Aviv’s high rating is based in large part on its talent. In fact, 40 percent of the city’s entrepreneurs have a master’s or doctoral degree compared to 42 percent in Silicon Valley. Plus, Google and Facebook both have presences in Tel Aviv. Still, the Israeli entrepreneurs have been reluctant to adopt new programming languages, and more than 80 percent still use PHP, C++ and Java as opposed to Ruby, Python and Javascript.

Cities’ talent pool relies heavily on immigration from Silicon Valley. The project found Berlin and Sao Paulo have the fewest founders who have previously lived in Silicon Valley, just 4 percent and 7 percent respectively. Conversely, Singapore and Waterloo have the most founders from Silicon Valley with 33 percent and 35 percent.

The Startup Genome is a 160-page report created by Bjoern Herrmann, Max Marmer and Ertan Dogrultan. The project is designed to enable startups and entrepreneurs a means of evaluating their progress compared to others within their space.

[Image via DavidSpinks/Flickr]