View of Tel Aviv. Photo: Avivcomp.co.il

The seaside city of Tel Aviv is the best place to launch a tech start-up outside the United States, according to a global ranking of high-tech hubs compiled by San Francisco-based business intelligence firm Compass.

Above Tel Aviv were four U.S. zones: Silicon Valley, New York City, Los Angeles and Boston.

Tel Aviv was also ranked among the top five hyper-growth environments including Berlin, India’s Bangalore, Amsterdam and London.

The list was composed based on a metric for determining a “healthy start-up ecosystem,” including available funding, talent and ability to penetrate the market.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Tel Aviv’s strongest attribute was its available talent, where it ranked third among the 20 tech environments. It also ranked relatively high in funding, performance and start-up experience.

Tel Aviv’s lowest ranking was in market reach, perhaps owing to its relative distance from European and U.S. markets.

The Mediterranean city scored three places lower this year than in the previous Compass report in 2012, which the BI firm said could have happened because of changes to the metric system such as the removal of “start-ups per capita” where Israel ranks consistently high.

Israel recently beat its own record for startup fundraising, bringing in $1.2 billion worth of investments in Q2 of this year. The average high-tech salary in Israel rose by 3.5 percent over the past year to 23,800 shekels ($6,300) per month, more than double the national average.