With 96 billion-dollar start-ups, India leads the world in producing US unicorn founders: Report – Firstpost

Indian-born entrepreneurs have become the largest immigrant group behind America’s billion-dollar startup boom, founding more US unicorn companies than immigrants from any other country, according to a new study.

Research by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) found that Indian immigrants have founded or co-founded 96 US startup companies valued at $1 billion or more, placing India comfortably ahead of Israel, whose immigrants founded 60 such companies, and the United Kingdom, which accounted for 47.

China ranked fourth with 41 billion-dollar startups founded by immigrants.

The findings come as the United States increasingly relies on global talent to drive innovation across sectors ranging from artificial intelligence and enterprise software to healthcare, cybersecurity and climate technology.

The NFAP study examined 775 privately held US startups valued at $1 billion or more as of April 2026. It found that immigrants have founded or co-founded 455 of these companies, accounting for 59 per cent of America’s unicorns.

The influence of immigration extends beyond founders. Nearly 80 per cent of US unicorn companies have either an immigrant founder or an immigrant serving in a key leadership position such as chief executive officer, chief technology officer or vice-president of engineering.

When the children of immigrants are included, roughly two-thirds of America’s billion-dollar startups have immigrant roots.

The report highlights the outsized contribution of Indian entrepreneurs to the US technology ecosystem.

Among the Indian-born founders featured in the study are entrepreneurs behind companies such as Cohesity, Glean, ThoughtSpot, Innovaccer, Icertis, HighRadius, Eightfold.ai, FourKites, Zenoti and o9 Solutions.

Many arrived in the United States as students before going on to build companies worth billions of dollars. The report notes that nearly one in four US unicorn companies has a founder who first came to America as an international student, underscoring the role of higher education in attracting entrepreneurial talent.

The study’s database includes numerous Indian entrepreneurs who earned advanced degrees from US universities before launching successful startups in sectors such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, enterprise software and digital healthcare.

India dominates the ranks of repeat founders

Building a single billion-dollar company is rare. Building multiple billion-dollar companies is even rarer.

NFAP identified at least 15 immigrants who have founded two or more billion-dollar startups in the United States. Notably, six of them were born in India before immigrating to America.

The list includes Mohit Aron, Jyoti Bansal, Ashutosh Garg, Arvind Jain, Sachin Nayyar and Ajeet Singh, placing India ahead of every other country in producing serial unicorn founders.

Other entrepreneurs on the list include Elon Musk of South Africa, Noubar Afeyan of Lebanon, Ion Stoica of Romania, Ilya Sutskever of Canada, Michael Gronager of Denmark and Christopher Ré of France.

The concentration of Indian founders among this elite group suggests the country’s influence extends beyond startup formation to the creation of repeat entrepreneurs capable of building multiple high-growth companies.

A $5 trillion contribution

The economic impact of immigrant-founded unicorns is substantial.

According to NFAP, the collective value of the 455 immigrant-founded billion-dollar companies stands at approximately $5 trillion — a figure larger than the total stock market value of companies listed in all but seven countries worldwide.

These companies have also become major job creators, employing an average of 833 workers each.

The San Francisco Bay Area remains the epicentre of immigrant entrepreneurship, hosting more than half of all immigrant-founded unicorns in the United States. Nearly 70 per cent of the region’s billion-dollar startups have at least one immigrant founder.

Talent advantage

The findings add to growing evidence that Indian-origin entrepreneurs have become one of the most influential forces in the American technology industry.

Over the past two decades, Indian professionals have risen to leadership positions at some of the world’s largest technology companies while also launching a growing number of venture-backed startups. The latest data suggests that India’s contribution to the US economy now extends well beyond supplying skilled workers, with Indian entrepreneurs increasingly helping create and scale some of America’s most valuable private companies.