A new report from the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) in June 2026 shows something striking about America’s startup economy.

Out of 775 privately held U.S. companies valued at $1 billion or more (unicorns), immigrants have founded or co-founded 455 of them. That is 59% of the total. These companies together are worth around $5 trillion.

The data highlights how much foreign-born talent contributes to building big American businesses. India leads the list by a clear margin with 96 companies, followed by Israel (60), the United Kingdom (47), China (41), and Canada (30). Other notable countries include Russia (23), France (21), Germany (18), Ukraine (16), and Australia (14).

India’s Strong Lead

Indian-born founders stand out the most. More than 100 Indian-origin entrepreneurs have helped build these 96 unicorns. Many came to the U.S. for higher studies and stayed to start companies.

Some well-known examples include:

  • Mohit Aron (Nutanix and Cohesity)
  • Jyoti Bansal (AppDynamics and Harness)
  • Ashutosh Garg (BloomReach and Eightfold.ai)
  • Arvind Jain (Rubrik and Glean)
  • Ajeet Singh (Nutanix and ThoughtSpot)
  • Sachin Nayyar (Securiti and others)

Other Indian-linked successes include Perplexity AI (co-founded by Aravind Srinivas, valued around $20 billion), HighRadius, Icertis, Innovaccer, FourKites, Zenoti, and o9 Solutions. Many of these focus on enterprise software, AI, data, and cloud tools.

Israel’s Impressive Contribution

Israel ranks second with 60 unicorns. Israeli founders often bring strong technical backgrounds, especially in cybersecurity, enterprise software, and AI.

Notable names include founders behind companies like Check Point, Wiz (cybersecurity), and others in data and cloud infrastructure. Israel’s small population makes this per-capita achievement even more remarkable.

Other Key Countries

The United Kingdom contributes 47 unicorns, including co-founders of Stripe (the Collison brothers from Ireland also show strong European influence). China has 41, often in e-commerce, fintech, and hardware-related areas. Canada brings 30, with strong representation in SaaS and productivity tools.

Smaller but notable numbers come from Russia (23), France (21), and others. The report also notes that many founders first came to the U.S. as international students; around 24% of unicorns have such a founder.

Big Companies with Immigrant Roots

Some of the highest-valued companies on the list show the scale of this impact:

  • SpaceX (Elon Musk, South Africa)
  • Anthropic (Jack Clark, UK, among others)
  • OpenAI (Elon Musk and Ilya Sutskever, among the team)
  • Databricks (multiple immigrant co-founders including Ion Stoica from Romania)
  • Stripe (Patrick and John Collison, Ireland)

These companies alone are worth hundreds of billions and employ thousands of people.

Why This Matters

Immigrant founders are not just starting companies, they are creating jobs and driving innovation. The NFAP report points out that these 455 companies have created an average of hundreds of jobs each. Many focus on cutting-edge areas like AI, cybersecurity, cloud computing, and fintech.

The growth has been rapid. In 2018, there were only 91 unicorns with 50 immigrant-founded. By 2026, that number jumped to 775 companies with 455 immigrant-founded; a massive increase in both scale and impact.

This success comes from a mix of factors: access to top universities, venture capital networks in places like Silicon Valley, and the drive many immigrants bring after leaving their home countries for better opportunities.

For India specifically, the numbers reflect the strength of its engineering education system and the ambition of many who move abroad. Similar patterns exist for Israel’s tech ecosystem and other countries with strong STEM talent.

The Bigger Picture

The NFAP study makes one thing clear: America’s ability to attract global talent has played a huge role in building its startup economy. Nearly 80% of these billion-dollar companies have either an immigrant founder or an immigrant in a key leadership role (CEO, CTO, VP Engineering, etc.).

At a time when immigration policies are often debated, this data shows the economic value immigrants bring. The collective value of these companies has grown from $168 billion in 2016 to $5 trillion in 2026.

Founders from different backgrounds bring diverse ideas, problem-solving approaches, and global market understanding. This mix has helped create companies that serve customers worldwide.

The story is still evolving. Many of these unicorns will go public or grow even larger in the coming years. But the June 2026 NFAP report already paints a clear picture: foreign-born founders are not just participants in America’s innovation economy; they are one of its biggest drivers.

Data source: National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) report, “Immigrants and U.S. Billion-Dollar Companies,” June 2026.

This is part of our case studies series looking at global talent, entrepreneurship, and startup trends on desifounder.com. We will keep sharing more insights as new reports and numbers come in.