The 1 National Venture Capital Association released a study titled: American Made. The impact of immigrant entrepreneurs and professional on US Competitiveness 2. The report studied venture capital backed public and private businesses consequently it does not cover immigrant entrepreneurs who managed to self-finance their startup.
One quarter of the public venture backed companies had immigrant founders, while in private venture backed companies a survey indicated nearly half were. India was the most common country of origin for both public and private. In the public venture backed companies the founders came from India, Israel, Taiwan, Canada, France, UK, Germany, Australia, China, Iran and others.
High-tech startups accounted for forty percent of the public venture capital backed companies. It also appears that immigrants settle in first before testing the entrepreneurial waters:
Over half of the immigrant founders started their 3 company within 12 years of entering the United States, with 19 percent doing so within 5 years. Sixty-nine percent have become U.S. citizens. Approximately half of the foreign-born founders in the survey have lived in the United States more than 20 years and nearly a quarter have been here 13 to 20 years.
The companies mentioned in the report are not to be sneezed at. Their market capitalisation is $500 billion and includes names like Intel, Yahoo, Sun, NVIDIA etc. The report ends with concern the current immigration policies might be throttling future sources of immigrant entrepreneurs to America.
