Indian presence in US
A recent study by Ilya A. Strebulaev, a Finance Professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business has found that out of 1,078 founders across 500 unicorns in the USA, 90 entrepreneurs were Indian born. This gives a significant presence of Indian Americans in the country’s startup as well as tech economy.
Out of the 44% Non-US born Unicorn founders, the number of India-born founders was the highest at 90. This was followed by the other non-US-born ones from Israel, Canada, UK, and China, with 52,42,31, and 27 founders respectively for these nations.
Indians leaving the US?
This data comes at a time when many Indian-based technology professionals are looking to head back home due to visa issues. According to a report, Indian immigrants in the US were planning to relocate amid visa issues as well as the increase in the startup industry in India. It’s not the startup founders alone, even India-born executives are now heading and running the most powerful tech giants in the US, like Google and Microsoft.
India’s startup ecosystem is witnessing a rising number of unicorns and the trend did not stop in 2022. India got its first unicorn of the year on the very first day of 2022 itself.
India’s startup boom
Even as per a recent report by venture capital fund Orios Venture Partners, Flipkart was the most valuable unicorn ($37.6 billion after raising $3.6 billion in July 2021), while Mensa Brands was the fastest to turn unicorn. The report also stated that the year 2021 was a landmark year for Indian startups going public, with Zomato having the highest market capitalisation ($14.8 billion) among the listed Indian startups, followed by Nykaa ($13.5 billion) and Freshworks ($6.9 billion).
Bengaluru was the ‘Unicorn Hub’ with 18 unicorns emerging from the city in 2021 and 35 in all. And not just that, according to the report.
Bengaluru also happens to be the 7th largest unicorn city in the world. Delhi claimed the second spot with 13 unicorns in 2021. At the same time, Mumbai boasts 11 unicorns in the year 2021 compared to just one in 2020.
