India: Earlier an Indian dreamt of going to the US for better future. Today, the US beckons Indians to come and create better future for their country. The new research by US National Foundation for American Policy (USNFAP) 2011 says that 46% – 23 of the country’s top 50 venture-funded companies had immigrant founders, most of them having India, especially Gujarat, as their common place of origin.
These Indians, including Gujaratis, have created an average of 150 jobs per company in the US and hence the US needs them to boost its economy when it is facing testing times.
Stuart Anderson, executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy, a public policy research organization in Arlington, Virginia, who served as executive associate Commissioner for Policy and Planning and Counsellor to the Commissioner at the Immigration and Naturalization Service, recently studied the US’ 50 top venture-funded companies’ histories and observed that Indian immigrants including Gujaratis are increasingly important in driving economical growth of the US.
Names of Indians including Gujarati entrepreneurs Varun Mehta and Umesh Maheshwari, founders of Nimble Storage in San Jose (2008), Ajeet Rohatgi, founder of Suniva Inc in Norcross (2007), Satish Palvai founder of Xactly Corp in San Jose (2005), R K Anand, S K Vinod, Ashok Krishnamurthi, founders of Xsigo Systems Inc in San Jose (2004), Mayank Bawa, founder of Aster Data Systems in San Calors (2005), Aayush Phumbhra, founder of Chegg Inc in Santa Clara (2007) and Samir Arora and Raj Narayan, founders of Glam Media in Brisbane (2004) are mentioned in the research for creating new jobs in the US.
“Start-up businesses are the lifeblood of the US economy,” notes the research stating, “Nearly half of America’s top 50 ventured backed companies and 75% of the US leading cutting-edge companies have been led by immigrants and the leading country of origin is India followed by Israel, Canada and New Zealand.
Sudhir Shah, immigration attorney said nearly 25% of Indian immigrant entrepreneurs in the US are of Guajrat origin. “These impressive numbers for immigrants are despite the fact that it is extremely difficult for a company’s founder to obtain a visa to stay in the US and America’s green card system for skilled immigrants produces long backlogs and years of waiting,” he said.
In addition to developing new technology, entrepreneurs have helped introduce new methods of operating businesses that later became common practice, points out the research. There is an entire body of researches that says that Indian immigrant entrepreneurs contribute substantially to business development in the US. The Small Business Administration (SBA) has concluded: “Immigrants are nearly 30% more likely to start a business than non-immigrants, and they represent 16.7% of all new business owners in the US.” The SBA study found that Indian immigrant business owners make significant contributions to business income, generating $67 billion of the $577 billion in the US business income.
Concurred an Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation study: “Immigrants were more than twice more likely to start businesses each month in 2010 than were the native-born. Among immigrants, 620 out of 1,00,000 people started a business each month, compared with 280 out of 1,00,000 people among the native-born.”
More recently, a research by the National Venture Capital Association concluded that an immigrant was a founder in one in four, or 25% of publicly traded venture-backed companies created between 1990 and 2005. The USNFAP research concludes: “While America has achieved great success as a nation of entrepreneurs, it should not assume this will continue without improved policies in immigration.”
Read More: Indians are real fuel in America’s growth engine, reveals study
