Melbourne, Australia is a very nice city: that’s an understatement for a place that, seven years running, has been named the world’s Most Livable City by The Economist. (It’s also, as my 10-year-old son has enthusiastically informed me, the birthplace of Kyrie Irving and hometown of Ben Simmons.) I'm here this week for Melbourne Knowledge Week, and the launch of Startup Genome's latest regional report, about the startup ecosystem in Melbourne and the state of Victoria.

Done in collaboration with LaunchVic, the state agency responsible for entrepreneurship, the report finds many reasons to be optimistic about the future of the Melbourne startup ecosystem. In fact, if all goes well with continued growth of the ecosystem, perhaps US$4.5 billion in economic value could be generated over the next several years. Such value comes from startups and the job creation and economic activity they stimulate, as well as startups that become scale-ups, and those that eventually exit through acquisition or public offering.

Read the full story at forbes.com.