Uber, Stripe, SpaceX, WeWork, Savage X Fenty, Databricks: all these American success stories have one thing in common – they sprouted in the mind of an “immigrant”.
The study by the National Foundation for American Policy released in early August 2022, that you can find here: Immigrant Entrepreneurs and U.S. Billion-Dollar Companies – NFAP, shows that 55% of American unicorns valued at more $1 billion and more were founded by an immigrant; 51 of the 582 start-ups valued at more than a billion were created by people born in the United States to immigrant parents; and nearly 80% of them have at least one immigrant in a key position (CEO, CTO,….).
On the company’s valuation podium, the winners are SpaceX ($125billion, Elon Musk, born in South Africa), Stripe ($95billion, John & Patrick Collison, born in Ireland) and Instacart (£39billion, Apoorva Mehta, born in India). The resulting job creation is impressive: SpaceX has grown from 7,000 employees in 2018 to 12,000 in 2022, and each of these companies creates an average of 859 jobs per year.
A quarter of these successful unicorns were created by a foreigner who came to the United States on a student visa, with a strong majority of talents coming from India – this country is the most represented in the list of nationalities of highly successful entrepreneurs, with 66 unicorns, followed by Israel, the United Kingdom, Canada, China, France, Germany, Russia, Ukraine and more than a dozen other countries.
Among these worthy representatives of the American Dream are many women: Rihanna (Savage x Fenty, $1 trillion, born in Barbados), Sherry Wei (Aviatrix, $2 trillion, born in China), Jen Rubio (Away, $1.5 trillion, born in the Philippines) or Joanna Kochaniak (Upside, $1.5 trillion, born in Poland).
This study comes at a time when companies are denouncing the growing difficulties in obtaining the L1, which is the work permit allowing companies to move their foreign talents to the US, within the same group. Four Indian companies (Tata Consulting Services, Infosys, Cognizant Tech and Tech Mahindra) are the first beneficiaries of this coveted permit.
We take this opportunity to remind you that, for French citizens and companies, the E2 permit can be a very good option.
Do not hesitate to contact us to find out more! oui@oui-immigration.com
