Al Goldstein, co-founder and CEO of Avant, gives the first acceptance speech for the Merrick Momentum Award, Oct. 8, 2015, in Chicago. New research concludes immigrants have founded or cofounded most of America’s privately held startup companies valued at $1 billion or more. (James C. Svehla/Chicago Tribune/TNS via Getty Images)
TNS via Getty Images
New research concludes that immigrants have founded or cofounded most of America’s privately held startup companies valued at $1 billion or more. The role of immigrant entrepreneurs receives little attention in daily press coverage. There is no startup visa in U.S. law—Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) blocked its inclusion in the Chips and Science Act in 2022. Immigrant entrepreneurs come to America as refugees or are sponsored by an employer or family member. The significant impact of immigrant entrepreneurs on the U.S. economy and on the creation of cutting-edge companies has become too big to ignore.
“Immigrants have founded or cofounded 59% (455 of 775) of America’s privately held startup companies valued at $1 billion or more,” according to a new National Foundation for American Policy analysis. (I authored the study.) “Moreover, approximately two-thirds (66%) of U.S. billion-dollar companies (unicorns) were founded or cofounded by immigrants or the children of immigrants. Nearly 80% of America’s unicorn companies (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.”
The research involved interviews and gathering information on over 700 U.S. startup companies valued at over $1 billion (as of April 2026). These are companies yet to be traded on the U.S. stock market, are tracked by CB Insights and have received venture capital financing.
According to the research, privately held U.S. billion-dollar startups with immigrant founders have created an average of 833 jobs per company.
Some members of Congress have recognized the contributions made by immigrant entrepreneurs. “Immigrants have always and continue to make enormous contributions to the U.S. economy, driving American innovation, entrepreneurship, and job creation,” said Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) in a statement. “Immigrant talent is deeply connected to the nation’s economic growth and technological leadership, and the billion-dollar startups founded or cofounded by immigrants are creating hundreds of thousands of jobs in cutting-edge industries. They continue to exemplify the very best of our country, and their outsized role in creating high-growth companies further highlights the importance of empowering immigrant communities.”
“The value that immigrants bring to American innovation and economic growth is immense and has always been America's competitive advantage,” said Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL) in a statement. “This study highlights how immigrants have played a leading role in critical American startups in AI, defense, cybersecurity, medical research, and other emerging industries. The takeaway is clear—if we want to continue leading in these fields and remain the world's top economy, we must pass policies like the Dignity Act to improve the talent pipeline and modernize our high-skilled immigration system for the 21st century.”
The collective value of the 455 immigrant-founded billion-dollar companies is $5 trillion. The research finds that is more than the total market value of companies listed on stock markets in all but 7 countries, including Germany and the United Kingdom.
According to the research, immigrants have fueled the rise of U.S. billion-dollar startups: “In 2018, there were 91 unicorn companies in the U.S., and 50 of them (or 55%) had an immigrant founder. Just eight 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 study finds the collective value of immigrant-founded unicorn companies rose from $168 billion to $5.0 trillion between 2016 and 2026, a 2876% increase in only a decade. “That does not include more than $768 billion in combined market capitalization for unicorn companies with at least one immigrant founder that have gone public since 2016, including Palantir, Uber, CrowdStrike, Cloudflare, Zoom Video, Moderna and others,” according to the research. “The rise of these and other soon-to-be publicly traded companies benefits the pocketbooks of retirees and other Americans, including through individual stock investments and mutual fund holdings.”
The U.S. billion-dollar companies with at least one immigrant founder with the highest valuations are SpaceX ($1.5 trillion), Anthropic ($965 billion), OpenAI ($852 billion), Databricks ($134 billion), Stripe ($106.7 billion), Ramp Financial ($32 billion), Safe Superintelligence ($32 billion) and Anysphere ($29.3 billion).
Almost one in four U.S. billion-dollar companies, or 24%, have a founder who came to America as an international student. U.S. billion-dollar startup companies founded by international students have created an average of 1,123 jobs per company. The total value of U.S. billion-dollar companies with international student founders is $3.5 trillion; more than $4 trillion if one includes unicorns that have gone public since 2016.
At U.S. universities, international students account for 80% of full-time graduate students in computer and information sciences, 75% in electrical and computer engineering, 62% in mathematics and statistics and a majority in industrial engineering, civil engineering and mechanical engineering.
Immigrant entrepreneurs in U.S. billion-dollar startups come from 76 different countries. India, with 96 companies, is the leading country of origin for the immigrant founders of U.S. billion-dollar companies, followed by immigrants from Israel with 60, the United Kingdom (47), China (41), Canada (30), Russia (23), France (21), Germany (18), Ukraine (16), Australia (14), Pakistan (10) and Romania (10).
According to the research, the typical immigrant founders of billion-dollar companies are self-made individuals who came from modest means.
Al Goldstein came to America as an 8-year-old child and grew up to start two companies worth more than $1 billion. In 1988, his family, as Jews in Uzbekistan, faced state-level persecution and anti-Semitism. The Goldstein family was accepted into the United States as refugees. “For my parents, it was pretty tough,” said Goldstein in an interview. “I can just imagine going to a new country with absolutely nothing, with two little kids.” Goldstein did not know English when he arrived, but excelled in school and graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 2012, he started Avant with John Sun and Paul Zhang, both of whom arrived in the United States as immigrant children from China. Avant, valued at $2 billion, is a financial technology platform that provides loans, credit cards and related products and services. Goldstein founded a second billion-dollar company, Amount, which was acquired by FIS in 2025.
Ben Liu immigrated with his parents from Taiwan when he was two years old. “When my parents decided where they wanted to raise kids, a big part was looking at a country where they felt their children would have the biggest opportunities,” he said in an interview. Liu is CEO and cofounder of Formation Bio. The company has 150 employees and is valued at over $1.8 billion. Formation Bio uses technology to automate and streamline clinical trials to bring more drugs to market—and more quickly. “I think the United States is the best place in the world to build something ambitious,” said Liu. “I am so grateful to my parents for their decision to come to the United States.”
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