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Why one business is investing in immigrant entrepreneurs to help create 100,000 jobs for Americans
Tech Republic ^ | March 27, 2017 | Hope Reese

Posted on 03/27/2017 11:28:32 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

When Nitin Pachisia arrived in the US from India in 2005, he became one of the 8 million first-generation immigrants to land in America that year.

Nearly a decade later, Pachisia has learned from firsthand experience how much support immigrants need to create their own thriving startups. In 2014, he co-founded Unshackled Ventures, a firm that invests in immigrant entrepreneurs. Pachisia is using his money to help other immigrants get their businesses started—and creating 100,000 American jobs while he's at it.

Both Pachisia and his business partner have previously started companies with a cofounder who was in the US on a visa. "We realized that immigrant founders need more than just capital to move faster," Pachisia said. "Unshackled Ventures was born to take away any distractions that teams or startups with immigrant founders may have face with immigration, as well as to connect founders with an engaged network of people. Ultimately, the people surrounding you make a large difference."

Immigrant entrepreneurs, Pachisia said, face unique challenges. Many are "working in an ecosystem where there are legal impediments which cause them to go into another ecosystem," he said. But helping immigrants create startups does more than giving them an opportunity to achieve success—it also creates new jobs, and ensures that those jobs don't get moved offshore.

Pachisia sees the US as a particularly ripe place for entrepreneurs because of self-selection. "There are seven billion people outside the US," he said. "Our schools and our companies recruit a half a million to a million and a half of the top talent to bring them here." America, said Pachisia, has an "over-achiever" culture that draws in people who want to be entrepreneurs, and gives them a shot at building a successful business.

After 2005, the percentage of tech companies founded by immigrants dropped said Pachisia. That's a result of a longer green card process, which can take up to 10 or 15 years.

"I've been in the US for 12 years," said Pachisia, "and I'm still in line for mine." What that means, he said, is people become more risk-averse. "They end up spending their prime years,when they could take a lot of risk, working for somebody else," he said.

Pachisia began noticing this phenomena. "We said, 'This is not acceptable,'" he said. "When we bring this top talent to the country, we also need to give the opportunity to achieve what they came out here for." =

So Unshackled Ventures invests capital at the pre-seed and seed stages in the startup process.

First, it offers help with immigration. "The founder should not have to spend even a minute thinking about immigration," Pachisia said, "because their time needs to go into building their product." Also, Unshackled Ventures provides network support, helping bring entrepreneurs in contact with investors from places like Intel, Cisco, and Google who can support their ideas. The entrepreneurs can also get help in R&D, and be hired as Unshackled employees. Also, they receive help acquiring top talent across the nation.

SEE: Diversity takes a hit: What now? (Tech Pro Research)

Since it believes in providing real hands-on support, Unshackled Ventures only invests in about a dozen companies a year. They guide entrepreneurs through sales pitches, products, pricing, and talent acquisition. "We really truly become partners in the business and work with founders shoulder to shoulder to help move fast," said Pachisia.

Unshackled Ventures believe startups have the potential to be "massive job creators."

"Once these businesses take off they create jobs in tens of thousands, not in tens," said Pachisia. So the 100,000 goal is the potential of jobs that could be created via immigrant entrepreneurs.

The worst form of offshoring, he said, is sending entrepreneurs away.

"We can bring them out of their day job," said Pachisia, "and put them in a position to pursue their American dream."

One of the beneficiaries of Unshackled Ventures is an entrepreneur named Prattek Joshi, CEO of Pluto AI. Joshi, a H-1B visa holder, earned his master's in AI at the University of Southern California. Growing up in Gulbarga, India, Joshi knew, firsthand, how important water health is to a community. And he realized that he could apply AI to help prevent water wastage, predict quality, and lower operating costs at water facilities—of which there are 150,000 in the US, alone.

Joshi said the support of Unshackled Ventures was the most important piece in launching his business. Navigating complicated immigration regulations had been a burden that he could not shoulder alone, he said.

Now, Joshi mentors other immigrants, in an effort to pay it forward. "That's how you build a community," he said. "That's what makes Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley. It's the support you get from the ecosystem."


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Chit/Chat; Society
KEYWORDS: economy; entrepreneurs; immigration; jobs
Doing it the legal way. What a concept.
1 posted on 03/27/2017 11:28:32 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
he became one of the 8 million first-generation immigrants to land in America that year

Gee. I remember when that number was 100,000 a year.

And then Rockefeller and Nixon told us we were "overpopulated" and needed to abort ourselves out of existence.

I guess to make way for the 8 million more deserving aliens who never had a damn thing to do with our country.

2 posted on 03/27/2017 11:36:46 AM PDT by Regulator
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

This is BS. Kill the H-1B visa.


3 posted on 03/27/2017 11:40:03 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

And a few more itty bitty comments:

“Joshi, a H-1B visa holder, earned his master’s in AI at the University of Southern California”

So he needed an institution built with U.S. taxpayer money over a century ago to provide him with the education needed to be one of the Miraculous Foreign Entrepenuers? What if we just educated our own people - whose parents paid for these places - instead of importing them from one (and apparently, only one) country? That was the original sales pitch behind those taxes.

“Growing up in Gulbarga, India, Joshi knew, firsthand, how important water health is to a community”

No, really? And somehow the country on the planet with the best municipal water systems, installed decades before any Indian national showed up, doesn’t know that?

“he realized that he could apply AI to help prevent water wastage, predict quality, and lower operating costs at water facilities”

Say it isn’t true! Really?! You can use software to improve operations? Apparently a Truth only known to Third Worlders from Squat Labor communities hard by the Ganges.

Apparently back when we were doing AI in the defense industry in the 80’s we just didn’t have the outlook we needed. Time to import Noble Savages from Bangladesh to enlighten us! Kinda like the Second Coming of the Bhagwan...


4 posted on 03/27/2017 11:43:34 AM PDT by Regulator
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To: Regulator

If our students would go for STEM degrees, there probably wouldn’t be room for many of these immigrants. But they don’t, do they? They get degrees in physical education, womyn’s studies, social studies and art history.


5 posted on 03/27/2017 11:58:28 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (You cannot invade the mainland US. There'd be a rifle behind every blade of grass.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
You are getting cause and effect backwards.

When you open the flood gates to H-1B visas that depress wages why would anyone major in STEM? Close the flood gates and see salaries rise. Then you will see a return of the domestic STEM graduate. It is called supply and demand.

6 posted on 03/27/2017 12:04:47 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: central_va; 2ndDivisionVet

CVa is correct.

Plenty of U.S. graduates (like me) in “STEM”. But they are discrminated against in addition to having their salaries gutted because of massive foreign competition.

Been there/Seen that here in the Silicon Slum for the last 30+ years. Nauseating ride, to put it mildly.


7 posted on 03/27/2017 12:44:58 PM PDT by Regulator
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To: All

I also agree completely with Central_VA.

8 million in one year? Legal?

That is way too many.


8 posted on 03/27/2017 2:25:37 PM PDT by TheTimeOfMan (A time for peace and a time for war)
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To: central_va; 2ndDivisionVet
You are getting cause and effect backwards.

I don't believe he is. Kids choose, or don't choose, STEM studies LONG before they even think of wages, other than the typical "computer geeks make good money" idea. They know they like science, math or technology, and they want to study it. But the problem is that these studies are HARD, and too many kids, and their parents, are more interested in their kids having easier classes so they can stay on the sports teams. They are all looking for their kids to get sports scholarships, NOT academic ones.

STEM studies are heavily populated by students of foreign backgrounds, because their parents don't have a problem pushing their kids a bit into those studies. Most American parents don't bother doing that, they just want their kids to do well in the classes they take, without challenging them TOO much.
Annoyingly, for feminists, STEM classes are also heavily male, because girls tend to go for the 'caring' studies, rather than the hard sciences. Too bad, because girls in STEM studies can make out like bandits when it comes to scholarships, and there is no 'gender gap' when it comes to wages in STEM jobs.

9 posted on 03/28/2017 4:07:03 PM PDT by SuziQ
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Nonsense. Wages have been driven down by immigrants and outsourcing and many STEM programs and workplaces are hostile environments for an American.

I can assure the old people that younger Americans have avoided programming after seeing the huge number of middle aged American men with mortgages and families to support who were laid off in the 90’s and could never get a job again. Many of my peers were impacted by that when I was in high school during the 90’s. It did influence good math students to look at banking instead of computers.


10 posted on 03/29/2017 5:17:40 PM PDT by WatchungEagle
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