We analyze the effect of industry, region, and time on new business survival rates by means of a multidimensional approach. The data relate to West German counties in the 1983-2000 period. Survival chances of start-ups tend to be relatively low in industries characterized by a high minimum efficient size and high numbers of entries. We find a rather pronounced positive influence of regional growth on survival rates while the relationship between nationwide development of the respective industry and survival tended to be negative. We also find a remarkable high level of spatial autocorrelation.