US Hosts 91% of Overseas Unicorns Built by Founders Who Grew Up in India, Prosus-Dealroom Report Finds

Indian entrepreneurs who grew up in India have built or helped build 205 billion-dollar companies outside the country, with the United States emerging as their overwhelmingly dominant destination, according to the new Indian Diaspora Index prepared by Prosus and Dealroom.

The study found that 187 of the 205 overseas current and former unicorns covered by the index are based in the United States, representing 91% of the group. Together, the companies account for approximately $560 billion in founder-share-attributed company value.

The figure does not represent the personal wealth of the founders or the complete market value of every company included in the study. Prosus and Dealroom calculate the number using a founder-share methodology under which each company is divided into equal founder portions and only the portions attributable to qualifying founders are counted.

70 Unicorns Built by All-Indian Founding Teams

Within the 205-company overseas group, 70 unicorns were created by founding teams composed entirely of qualifying Indian founders. Prosus and Dealroom attribute approximately $243 billion in company value to this group.

The companies cited by Prosus include Zscaler, founded by Jay Chaudhry; Rubrik, whose founders include Arvind Jain, Arvind Nithrakashyap, Bipul Sinha and Soham Mazumdar; Nutanix, associated with founders Ajeet Singh, Dheeraj Pandey and Mohit Aron; and Skild, founded by Deepak Pathak and Abhinav Gupta.

The remaining 135 overseas unicorns have one or more Indian-origin founders within broader founding teams. This group accounts for another $317 billion on the same founder-share basis and includes companies such as Palo Alto Networks, Bloom Energy, Astera Labs and Perplexity. Combined, the two categories produce the approximately $560 billion figure recorded by the index.

United States Dominates the Overseas Founder Landscape

The concentration of these companies in the United States is one of the clearest findings in the study. Of the 205 overseas unicorns whose qualifying founders grew up in India, 187 are located in the US.

Dealroom’s underlying dataset describes this group specifically as unicorns based outside India with at least one founder who grew up in India. The data used for the analysis was frozen on 16 September 2026, providing a defined reference point for the comparison.

Prosus also presented a separate, broader analysis based on founders who were born in India. That dataset contains 323 companies and includes founders who may have left India during childhood as well as companies that remain based in India.

Within this wider group, 200 of the 323 companies are based in the United States. Prosus said 178 were started there while another 22 subsequently relocated to the country. The US therefore accounts for around 62% of this broader birth-origin dataset rather than the 91% recorded for the narrower overseas group.

The distinction between the two calculations is significant. The 91% figure refers specifically to overseas unicorns associated with founders who grew up in India, while the 62% figure comes from a larger dataset built around place of birth and includes India-based businesses.

India-Based Unicorns Account for $349 Billion

The report also compares the overseas founder cohort with companies built within India. According to Prosus, 102 unicorns based in India account for approximately $349 billion in founder-share-attributed company value under the same methodology.

Flipkart leads the India-based group at approximately $36 billion on this measure, followed by Zomato at $30 billion and Groww at $16 billion.

The comparison shows two substantial streams of Indian entrepreneurial activity developing simultaneously. One consists of founders who moved abroad and created companies in major international technology markets, particularly the United States. The other has grown within India as the country’s startup financing, digital infrastructure, consumer market and technology workforce have expanded.

Prosus Says Indian Founders Can Now Build at Scale From India

Saurav Jain, Principal Investor at Prosus India, said the index reflects the density of entrepreneurial talent emerging from India and its ability to create companies operating at global scale.

Prosus also pointed to a change in the environment available to founders within India. Jain said the domestic market now offers the combination of market opportunity, capital and operating talent required to create large technology companies without founders necessarily having to move overseas.

That shift is visible alongside the diaspora numbers themselves. India retains more than 100 unicorns in the dataset while founders who grew up in the country have also played roles in creating more than 200 billion-dollar businesses overseas.

Indian Founders Across Major Global Technology Companies

The companies identified by the study span enterprise software, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, clean energy, semiconductors and other technology-intensive sectors.

Zscaler and Palo Alto Networks have become major names in global cybersecurity, while Rubrik and Nutanix operate in enterprise technology and cloud infrastructure. Astera Labs operates in semiconductor connectivity, while Perplexity has emerged within the rapidly developing artificial-intelligence sector.

The spread across industries shows that the Indian founder diaspora is not concentrated in a single generation of software or internet companies. The companies captured by the index extend across successive technology cycles and include both long-established businesses and newer AI-era ventures.

A $560 Billion Overseas Entrepreneurial Footprint

The Prosus-Dealroom numbers provide one of the clearer measurements of the scale reached by founders who grew up in India and subsequently built companies abroad.

The United States remains the principal centre of that overseas activity, hosting 187 of the 205 unicorns in the core index. At the same time, the presence of 102 unicorns based in India with approximately $349 billion in founder-share-attributed value shows that large technology businesses are increasingly being built within the country as well.

Taken together, the two groups illustrate an entrepreneurial footprint that now operates across both India’s domestic technology economy and some of the world’s largest startup markets.

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References

Prosus — Indian founders account for $560B of company value abroad, September 2026. Official Prosus publication presenting the findings of the Indian Diaspora Index developed with Dealroom.

Dealroom — Indian Diaspora Index. Dataset covering overseas unicorns with founders who grew up in India. Data frozen on 16 September 2026.

Dealroom — Indian Diaspora Index Founder Flows. Broader analysis of 323 unicorns with at least one India-born founder and their geographic distribution.

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