Foreign-born founder behind more than half of Britain’s fastest-growing companies and 70% of their value

For the second year running, more than half of Britain’s 100 fastest-growing companies have a founder born overseas, according to new analysis by The Entrepreneurs Network.

Over half (54%) had a foreign-born founder or co-founder, equalling last year’s figure as the highest since the think tank began tracking it in 2019. Together, those 54 companies have a combined pre-money valuation of £15.84 billion, 70% of the total for the top 100.

Of the 225 founders and co-founders behind those 54 companies, 98 (44%) were born overseas, up from 42% last year. That is more than double the foreign-born share of the population, which the Migration Observatory put at around 19% in 2024; more recent estimates for England and Wales are closer to 18%.

Many immigrant founders build alongside British-born co-founders: 29 of the 54 companies were joint efforts, while 25 were founded entirely by people born overseas.

The founders were born in 35 countries across six continents, up from 29 last year. The United States was the most common country of birth, with nine founders, followed by Italy (eight) and Germany and India (seven each). No single country accounts for more than a tenth of the foreign-born founders.

The report also features case studies of foreign-born founders, including Tim Chong of rewards credit card Yonder, Alexandra Birch-Mayne of financial services AI company Aveni and Tamar Gomez of R&D platform Ankar AI.

The analysis comes as the Government decides how to respond to its consultation on earned settlement, which proposed doubling the standard qualifying period for Indefinite Leave to Remain from five years to ten for most work routes. The consultation closed in February 2026 with more than 200,000 responses, but no response has been published.

Net migration has already fallen from a peak of 944,000 in the year to March 2023 to 171,000 in 2025. The Entrepreneurs Network argues this leaves less reason than at any point in the past five years for further sweeping restrictions that catch the small number of people who start and scale the companies Britain needs.

Founders find Britain an easier place to start a business than to grow one. In The Entrepreneurs Network’s Survey, conducted by Public First, 65% agree the UK is an easy country in which to start a business, but only 14% say the same of scaling one. More than half (55%) find it difficult to recruit new staff.

Almost all of the think tank’s recommendations could be delivered through a Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules or amendments to fees regulations, without primary legislation. This research urges the Government to:

• End the uncertainty over settlement by publishing the consultation response with a firm implementation date. The response should confirm that Global Talent holders on the exceptional promise route can settle after three years, that the partners and children of Global Talent and Innovator Founder visa holders can settle on the same timeline and that people already in the UK keep the rules they arrived under.
• Keep the founders Britain educates by giving Graduate visa holders a further 12 months where an approved endorsing body has agreed to assess their business for the Innovator Founder visa. With the Graduate route falling to 18 months from January 2027, that would give them 30 months in total.
• Open the High Potential Individual visa to graduates of world-leading business schools and specialist institutions such as INSEAD, HEC Paris, IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay, by widening the rankings used to set eligibility. The cap of 8,000 applications a year can stay, and the route should be promoted directly to graduating students.
• Cut the cost of coming and hiring. A founder moving to Britain alone on the Innovator Founder visa pays £6,862, rising to £18,694 with a partner and two children. Visa fee reimbursement, now available only to established scaleups, should be extended to companies with fewer than ten employees for their first three sponsored hires, and fees on founder and high-talent routes should be frozen for the rest of this Parliament.
• Fix the Innovator Founder visa. Once an approved body has endorsed an application, Home Office caseworkers should limit their checks to identity, security, provenance of funds and fraud. Processing standards should be binding, and the requirement that a business be new and innovative should be replaced with a test of whether it is viable and likely to grow.
• Red-team new routes before they launch by appointing a standing panel of endorsing bodies, immigration solicitors and founders to find how each new or amended route could be exploited, with its assessment published alongside the Statement of Changes.

Pat Saini, head of immigration at Penningtons Manches Cooper, which supported the research, said:

“For founders, immigration is rarely a stand-alone administrative issue. Hiring plans, investment decisions, family life and long-term business strategy are all tightly connected to an individual’s chosen visa route and current immigration status. When uncertainty persists, it becomes harder for entrepreneurs to commit fully to building their future in the UK.

“A visa specifically designed for entrepreneurs should be accessible and efficient. At present, too many founders encounter delays and unnecessary complexity. It’s vital that we ensure our immigration framework rewards ambition, supports innovators and enables founders to put down roots if we want the next generation of job creators to build their future here.”

Philip Salter, founder of The Entrepreneurs Network, said:

“Year after year, our analysis shows foreign-born founders building a disproportionate share of Britain’s fastest-growing companies. This year they’re behind more than half of the top 100 and 70% of its value. These are exactly the people a government with a growth mission should be competing to attract.

“Net migration has already fallen sharply, and more than half the public back making it easier for skilled people to move here. Yet founders and the people they want to hire are being asked to make ten-year decisions against settlement rules that still don’t exist. The Home Secretary should publish the consultation response and confirm that founders, exceptional talent and their families keep a fast track to settlement. None of our recommendations would materially increase net migration – they would simply make sure the people who build Britain’s fastest-growing companies choose to do it here.”