Immigrants hailing from 76 countries have founded or cofounded 59% (455 of 775) of America’s privately held startup companies valued at $1 billion or more with India topping the list with 96 companies, according to a new study.
Moreover, approximately two-thirds (66%) of America’s unicorns were founded or cofounded by immigrants or the children of immigrants, according to National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), a nonpartisan public policy research organization based in Arlington, Virginia.
The study “Immigrants and U.S. Billion-Dollar Companies” shows that nearly 80% of America’s unicorns (privately held, billion-dollar companies) have an immigrant founder or an immigrant in a key leadership role, such as CEO or vice president of engineering. Almost one in four U.S. billion-dollar companies, or 24%, have a founder who came to America as an international student.
The research shows the importance of immigrants in cutting-edge companies and the U.S. economy at a time when U.S. immigration policies have grown more restrictive, NFAP stated.
“The research indicates that more open immigration policies will produce more startup companies in America, including cutting-edge companies that transform industries and employ many Americans,” said NFAP Executive Director Stuart Anderson, who authored the report. “On the other hand, immigration restrictions could threaten America’s technological leadership and competitiveness.”
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The collective value of the 455 immigrant-founded billion-dollar companies is $5.0 trillion, which is more than the total market value of companies listed on stock markets in all but seven countries, including the UK and Germany, and a demonstration of the wealth-creating power of immigrants.
The collective value of immigrant-founded billion-dollar companies rises to over $5.8 trillion if one includes unicorn companies that have gone public since 2016.
Immigrants have fueled the rise of U.S. billion-dollar startups, the study noted. In 2018, there were 91 unicorn companies in the U.S., and 50 of them (or 55%) had an immigrant founder.
Just 8 years later, in 2026, those numbers increased to 775 U.S. unicorn companies (as of April 2026), and 455 (59%) have at least one immigrant founder, a 750% rise in the number of U.S. unicorn companies and an over 800% increase in the number with immigrant founders.
The collective value of immigrant-founded unicorn companies has risen from $168 billion to $5.0 trillion between 2016 and 2026, a 2876% increase in only a decade.
The research found that the immigrant founders of billion-dollar companies are self-made individuals who typically came from modest means before achieving the American Dream.
The father of Munjal Shah, CEO and cofounder of Hippocratic AI, arrived in America on a steamship with $16 in his pocket to attend graduate school at Berkeley.
Shah, born in India, moved to Silicon Valley at age 7. He founded Hippocratic AI in 2023, and it already has 190 employees and is
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valued at $3.5 billion. The company uses AI to bring “deep healthcare expertise” to patients, backed by a network of more than 7,500 U.S.-licensed clinicians.”
Ashtush Garg, born in India, arrived in the United States in 1998 and earned a PhD in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
In 2009, Garg cofounded and became chief technology officer of Bloomreach, which provides companies in e-commerce with “real-time customer and product data.”
In 2016, he cofounded and became CEO of Eightfold.AI, which pioneered a “Talent Intelligence Platform” to allow companies to hire, promote and manage their most valuable resource—people.
The two companies are each valued at over $2 billion and employ approximately 1,700 people combined. Garg has over 50 patents and 6,000 research citations.
Overall, 70% of immigrant-founded billion-dollar companies have solely an immigrant founder or immigrant founders, a majority of founders who were immigrants or an even number of immigrant and native-born founders; only 30% have a majority of native-born founders.
The analysis shows that 55% of immigrant-founded billion-dollar companies have only an immigrant or multiple immigrant founders (i.e., no native-born founders).
After India, immigrants from Israel founded the second-most billion-dollar companies with 60, followed by the United Kingdom (47), China (41), Canada (30), Russia (23), France (21), Germany (18), Ukraine (16), Australia (14), Pakistan (10) and Romania (10).