Immigrants have created some of America’s most valuable privately held companies. Several of these companies are soon to become publicly traded and available to any American who wants to invest in these billion-dollar startups.
The news of potential initial public offerings (IPOs) for many immigrant-founded companies comes at a time when a study from the National Foundation for American Policy finds that 55%, or 50 of 91, of the country’s $1 billion startup companies had at least one immigrant founder. Many of these immigrant-founded companies are valuable. “The collective value of the 50 immigrant-founded companies is $248 billon, which is more than the value of all the companies listed on the stock market of many countries, including Argentina, Columbia, Peru, Portugal and Ireland,” according to the research. The $248 billion figure likely underestimates the underlying value of these 50 companies.
Uber, cofounded by Canadian immigrant Garrett Camp, is the most valuable U.S. billion-dollar company with at least one immigrant founder, with a valuation of $72 billion. However, the Wall Street Journal recently reported that if Uber proceeds with an anticipated initial public offering in 2019, its value could reach $120 billion. “That eye-popping figure is nearly double Uber’s valuation in a fundraising round two months ago and more than General Motors, Ford Motor and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles are worth combined,” reported the newspaper.
SpaceX, founded by South African immigrant Elon Musk, and WeWork, co-founded by Israeli-born immigrant Adam Neumann, are the second and third most valuable U.S. billion-dollar startups with an immigrant founder, valued at $21 billion and $20.2 billion respectively. Neither company is expected to have an initial public offering in 2019.
Source: National Foundation for American Policy; valuations from "Billion Dollar Startup Club," Wall Street Journal, taken at various dates prior to October 1, 2018.
Other valuable immigrant-founded billion-dollar companies include Stripe ($20 billion), Slack ($7.1 billion), Moderna Therapeutics ($7 billion), Robinhood ($5.6 billion), Wish ($4.3 billion), Instacart ($4.2 billion), Houzz ($4 billion), Credit Karma ($3.5 billion), Tanium ($3.5 billion), Zoox ($3.2 billion), CrowdStrike ($3 billion), Unity Technologies ($2.8 billion), Oscar Health Insurance ($2.7 billion), Zenefits ($2 billion) and Avant ($2 billion). Note: These valuations are as of October 1, 2018. Instacart completed a round of funding in mid-November that values the company at $7.87 billion, according to Reuters.
“Other big tech startups in the 2019 IPO queue, according to people familiar with the matter, include workplace-messaging platform Slack Technologies Inc. as well as a raft of smaller but closely watched companies including food-delivery service Postmates Inc., security firms CrowdStrike Inc. and Cloudflare Inc., and videoconferencing-software provider Zoom Video Communications Inc.,” reported the Wall Street Journal.
All five of the companies mentioned above have at least one immigrant founder. There is no startup visa that allows a foreign-born individual to obtain permanent residence (a green card) for founding a business. That’s why immigrant entrepreneurs are almost always refugees or first sponsored by employers or family members. Even then, an individual in H-1B status may wait years for his or her green card before setting off to start a new business.
Immigrant-founded billion-dollar companies employ an average of more than 1,200 employees per company (the vast majority of the jobs in the United States), according to the National Foundation for American Policy. These companies are also among the most exciting and valuable privately held businesses in America. Many are about to become even more valuable.