National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) Ranks India First in US Unicorn Founders

Key facts

• The National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) report titled Immigrants and U.S. Billion-Dollar Companies states that Indian-born entrepreneurs have founded or co-founded 96 unicorns in the United States.
• Immigrants have founded 455 out of 775 privately held start-up companies valued at $1 billion or more in the US, accounting for 59% of all unicorns as of April 2026.
• India leads the ranking of immigrant founders with 96 companies, followed by Israel (60), United Kingdom (47), China (41), Canada (30), Russia (23), France, Germany, Ukraine, Australia, Pakistan, and Romania.
• The collective value of the 455 immigrant-founded unicorn companies is approximately $5 trillion, with these companies creating an average of 833 jobs each.
• Nearly one in four US unicorn companies has a founder who first came to the United States as an international student, contributing a combined value of $3.5 trillion.