What share of US tech startups are founded by Indian immigrants?

The best measure: Kauffman's immigrant entrepreneur studies

The question is usually answered with research led by Vivek Wadhwa, AnnaLee Saxenian and F. Daniel Siciliano for the Kauffman Foundation, which surveyed engineering and technology companies founded in the US and identified whether a key founder was foreign-born. Its 2012 report, the latest in the series, found that 24.3% of engineering and technology companies founded nationwide between 2006 and 2012 had at least one immigrant key founder, slightly down from 25.3% for 1995 to 2005¹.

Among those immigrant-founded companies, 33.2% had Indian founders, up about 7 percentage points from 2005, and Indians founded more such companies than immigrants from the next seven countries combined¹.

Country of origin	Share of immigrant-founded tech startups, 2006-2012
India	33.2%
China	8.1%
United Kingdom	6.3%
Canada	4.2%
Germany	3.9%
Israel	3.5%

Source: Kauffman Foundation, 2012¹.

Multiplying the two shares gives a rough estimate that about 8% of all US engineering and technology startups in that period had an Indian immigrant founder (our calculation from Kauffman's figures), at a time when Indian immigrants were around 1% of the US population; MPI counts about 3.2 million today^1,4.

What HeyAlbert data shows

Silicon Valley: an even larger role

The concentration is highest in Silicon Valley. Kauffman found that 43.9% of Silicon Valley startups founded between 2006 and 2012 had at least one immigrant key founder, and its 2007 study had found that Indians accounted for 25.8% of immigrant-founded Silicon Valley startups between 1995 and 2005, far ahead of China and the UK at 5.4% each¹. Nationally, 26% of Indian-founded companies in the 2012 sample were in California and 8% in Massachusetts¹. Our profile of Indian Americans in Silicon Valley and the Bay Area looks at the population behind those numbers.

The billion-dollar end of the market

Kauffman's data stop in 2012, but the National Foundation for American Policy tracks the most valuable private startups today. As of April 2026, immigrants had founded or co-founded 455 of 775 US unicorns (59%), and India, with 96 companies, was the leading country of origin, ahead of Israel (60) and the United Kingdom (47)². Six of the 15 immigrants who have founded two or more US unicorns were born in India². The details, including the serial founders, are in how many billion-dollar startups have Indian-born founders, and the biggest liquidity events are in the largest IPOs and exits by Indian American founders.

Jobs and output

These companies are significant employers. Kauffman estimated that immigrant-founded engineering and technology companies started between 2006 and 2012 employed about 560,000 workers and generated $63 billion in revenue in 2012, across all countries of origin¹. At the top of the market, NFAP finds that immigrant-founded unicorns employ an average of 833 people each, and those with a founder who first came to the US as an international student average 1,123 jobs². Because Indian-born founders make up the largest single group in both datasets, they account for a meaningful share of those jobs, although neither study publishes a country-level employment total.

For founders, the financial reward usually arrives years later, through a sale, secondary transactions or an IPO. That timing explains why many Indian American founders show up first as high earners and only later as holders of significant wealth.

Why Indian immigrants start so many tech companies

The research points to a few drivers. Immigrants in general found firms at higher rates: a study co-authored by MIT economist Pierre Azoulay found that 0.83% of immigrants founded a firm between 2005 and 2010, against 0.46% of US-born citizens, making immigrants about 80% more likely to start a company³. Indian immigrants also arrive with unusually technical training; MPI reports that half hold a graduate or professional degree⁴. Many come as students or skilled workers and found companies after years inside US tech firms, a path described in the H-1B visa and Indian American wealth and the IIT and IIM route to US leadership.

Networks matter too. Organizations such as TiE, founded in Silicon Valley, connect founders with mentors and capital; see TiE, AAPI and other professional networks and Indian American angel investors. As earlier founders exit, many become investors in the next generation, covered in Indian American venture capitalists.

Caveats

The Kauffman figures come from a sample of companies and count founders by country of birth, so US-born children of Indian immigrants are not in the India share¹. Its national counts are now more than a decade old, and no comparable official dataset has replaced them. Unicorn counts cover only the most valuable private companies, a small and unusual slice of all startups².