Immigrants have founded or cofounded 59% (455 of 775) of America’s privately held startup companies valued at $1 billion or more, according to a new National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) analysis.
That is an increase from 55% in NFAP reports released in 2018 and 2022. Moreover, approximately two-thirds (66%) of U.S. billiondollar companies (unicorns) were founded or cofounded by immigrants or the children of immigrants.
Nearly 80% of America’s unicorn companies (privately held, billion-dollar companies) have an immigrant founder or an immigrant in a key leadership role, such as CEO or vice president of engineering. Almost one in four U.S. billiondollar companies, or 24%, have a founder who came to America as an international student.
The research shows the importance of immigrants in cutting-edge companies and the U.S. economy at a time when U.S. immigration policies have grown more restrictive. The collective value of the 455 immigrant-founded billion-dollar companies is $5.0 trillion, which is more than the total market value of companies listed on stock markets in all but 7 countries, including the UK and Germany, and a demonstration of the wealth-creating power of immigrants.
The collective value of immigrant-founded billion-dollar companies rises to over $5.8 trillion if one includes unicorn companies that have gone public since 2016. Given that each cofounder contributes to a startup company’s success, it appears likely that few of the billion-dollar companies with at least one immigrant founder would exist or been created in the United States if the foreign-born founder had not been allowed to come to America, implying America would have fewer than half as many billiondollar companies, hundreds of thousands fewer jobs and up to $5.0 trillion less wealth.
Immigrants have fueled the rise of U.S. billion-dollar startups: In 2018, there were 91 unicorn companies in the U.S., and 50 of them (or 55%) had an immigrant founder. Just 8 years later, in 2026, those numbers increased to 775 U.S. unicorn companies (as of April 2026), and 455 (59%) have at least one immigrant founder, a 750% rise in the number of U.S. unicorn companies and an over 800% increase in the number with immigrant founders.
The collective value of immigrant-founded unicorn companies has risen from $168 billion to $5.0 trillion between 2016 and 2026, a 2876% increase in only a decade. That does not include more than $837 billion in combined market capitalization for unicorn companies with at least one immigrant founder that have gone public since 2016, including Palantir, Uber, CrowdStrike, Cloudflare, Robinhood, Zoom Video, Moderna and others.
The rise of these and other soon-to-be publicly traded companies benefits the pocketbooks of retirees and other Americans, including through individual stock investments and mutual fund holdings.
