Nearly half of America's billion-dollar startup founders were born outside the United States, according to new research from Stanford's Venture Capital Initiative. Ilya Strebulaev analyzed over a thousand unicorn founders and found that forty-four percent came from other countries. India leads with ninety unicorn founders, followed by Israel with fifty-two and Canada with forty-two. Here's what's striking: when startups founded abroad relocate to America, their odds of reaching unicorn status skyrocket. Israeli companies that moved to the U-S were nine times more likely to hit that billion-dollar valuation than those that stayed home; Indian companies saw a six-point-five times boost. The research suggests that while great ideas emerge everywhere, the American ecosystem offers unique advantages for scaling—and immigrant founders are increasingly the ones capitalizing on them.

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