India Surpasses Israel and China as Top Source of US Unicorns Founded by Immigrants: Global Report

Indian-Origin Entrepreneurs Drive America's Unicorn Ecosystem

A new analysis by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) has revealed that Indian-origin entrepreneurs have emerged as the largest contributors to America's unicorn ecosystem, with 96 US-based billion-dollar companies founded by immigrants from India. According to the study, Indian founders account for more than one-fifth of all immigrant-founded unicorns in the United States, placing India well ahead of other countries.

The NFAP analysis underscores the significant role immigrants continue to play in the US innovation economy at a time when immigration policies and programmes such as the H-1B visa remain under intense public and political scrutiny. The study found that founders of these companies entered the United States through a wide range of immigration pathways, including refugee programmes, family-sponsored immigration and employment-based visas, before eventually building some of the country's most valuable businesses.

Read also: UK Business Secretary Faces Scrutiny Over Lack of Timeline for India Trade Deal Amid Steel Industry Dispute

Collectively, the 455 immigrant-founded billion-dollar companies identified in the study are valued at approximately $5 trillion. NFAP noted that this combined value exceeds the total stock market capitalisation of companies listed in all but seven countries worldwide, including the United Kingdom, Germany and Saudi Arabia. The scale of wealth creation has expanded dramatically over the past decade, with the combined valuation of immigrant-founded unicorns surging by more than 2,800 per cent since 2016, when it stood at $168 billion.

Among the highest-valued companies founded by immigrants are SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI, Databricks, Stripe, Ramp Financial, Safe Superintelligence, Anysphere, Cerebras Systems, Epic Games, Chobani, Perplexity and Miro. The analysis also highlighted the growing number of immigrant-founded startups that have successfully transitioned to public markets, including Palantir, Uber, CrowdStrike, Cloudflare, Robinhood, Zoom Video, Moderna, Nutanix, Instacart, Rubrik and ServiceTitan.

NFAP identified at least 15 entrepreneurs who have founded two or more billion-dollar companies, with six of them born in India before immigrating to the United States. These entrepreneurs include Mohit Aron, Jyoti Bansal, Ashutosh Garg, Arvind Jain, Sachin Nayyar and Ajeet Singh.

Immigrant-founded unicorns have also emerged as major employers, with the research finding that such companies employ an average of 833 people each. SpaceX tops the list with 25,700 employees, followed by REEF Technology, Stripe, Gopuff, Databricks, Deel, Cohesity, OpenAI and several other fast-growing technology firms.

Read also: Concerns Raised at Parliamentary Panel Meeting Over Rupee and Sluggish Private Investment

The study further revealed that immigrant influence extends well beyond company founders. In addition to the 455 unicorns with at least one immigrant founder, NFAP identified 158 other billion-dollar US companies where immigrants occupy key leadership roles such as chief executive officer, chief technology officer or vice-president of engineering. Overall, immigrants hold founding or senior leadership positions in 613 of the 775 billion-dollar companies operating in the United States, representing nearly 79 per cent of the country's unicorn ecosystem.