A study published by the National Foundation for American Policy on Tuesday, 26 July, has revealed that "India, with 66 companies, is the leading country of origin for the immigrant founders of US billion-dollar companies."
Only companies that are startups valued at $1 billion or more are included in the list.
India is followed by Israel, whose immigrants have founded 54 unicorns.
And Israel is followed by "the United Kingdom (27), Canada (22), China (21), France (18), Germany (15), Russia (11), Ukraine (10), Iran (8), Australia (7), Romania (6), Italy (6), Poland (6), Nigeria (6), South Korea (5), New Zealand (5), Pakistan (5) Argentina (5), Brazil (5), Spain (4), Portugal (4), Denmark (4) and several other countries."
Stuart Anderson, the author of the study and NFAP's executive director said that "the research shows the importance of immigrants in cutting-edge companies and the US economy at a time when US immigration policies have pushed talent to other countries."
The study goes on to show the key role of immigrants behind the rise of American billion-dollar startups.
It argues that without immigrants and their contributions, there would be fewer than half as many unicorns in the country.
There were 91 unicorn companies in the United States as of 1 October 2018. Around 55 percent of them (50 companies) had an immigrant founder.
As of May 2022, however, there are 582 unicorn companies in the US and 319 (or 55 percent) had an immigrant founder.
That is a 500 percent increase in both unicorn companies and immigrant-founded unicorn companies between the four years between 2018 and 2022.
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