Australian cities lag well behind world leaders in generating new start-up companies. Data from the Chief Scientist's new report on entrepreneurship shows that, in start-ups per million population, Sydney and Melbourne rank well below cities such as London, Seattle, New York, Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv. Australia also lags in generating start-up companies compared with the amount spent on research. Australia has 0.4 start-ups per $US100 million spend on research compared with 1.3 and 1.5 in the US and Canada respectively.