Philadelphia's growing innovation economy is rich with youth compared to most other metro areas. A new study ranking cities by the lowest average age of entrepreneurs found that Philadelphia entrepreneurs are the fourth-youngest of the 50 largest U.S. metros.
According to an analysis by online financial platform provider LendingTree, the average age of an entrepreneur in Philadelphia is 34.44 years. That ranks the city just marginally behind Salt Lake City, Pittsburgh and Cleveland, which all have an average age between 34.13 years and 34.27. Providence, Rhode Island, rounds out the top five with an average age of 34.52.
Nationally, the average age of entrepreneurs across the 50 largest metros in the U.S. is 36.4 years, the LendingTree study found. By state, Pennsylvania has the fifth youngest entrepreneurs at an average age of 34.25 years, with youth prevalent in both Philadelphia and Pittsburgh's entrepreneurial communities.
In the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, Philadelphia and Providence are joined by Buffalo with an average of 34.98 years to rank No. 10 and New York at No. 17 with an average age of 35.69 years. Other peer cities like Boston, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore all have an average age above 36.
To compile its report, LendingTree looked at more than 35,000 funding requests from business owners to its SnapCap program, a loan lending service for companies, between July 2022 and June 2023.
As part of its funding request process, LendingTree asks business owners to disclose their birth year as well as the year their company was founded, which the firm then used to calculate the age of its applicants at the time of their company's establishment. LendingTree also gathered geographic locations for these applications to determine metro-based statistics.
Some of Philadelphia's quickest-growing startups are led by entrepreneurs below the metro area's average of 34.44 years. Startups like Gopuff with founders Rafael Ilishayev and Yakir Gola; Lula Convenience with founders Adit Gupta and Tom Falzani; and Carbon Reform with Jo Norris and Nick Martin, are all helmed by young faces making waves in the startup world. Additionally, this year's PHL Inno Under 25 list features recent college graduates leading an array of local startups like Sonura, Aer Cosmetics and ParkPlug.
Leaders in the industry are noticing the youth as well. Isabelle Kent, the executive director of nonprofit Philly Startup Leaders, said the pandemic spawned an uprising of young entrepreneurs in the region testing the startup waters for the first time.
"We saw this massive influx of entrepreneurs that really are coming in as first-time founders and haven't had a lot of experience in this world yet, which is unique that I think that we face in Philly more so than some other ecosystems," Kent said. That influx pushed Kent to create a team of longtime entrepreneurs and tech veterans to help guide the ecosystem's youth as the Philly Startup Leaders Legacy Leaders Council.
