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If reports are to be believed, <keyword id="10862" type="CITY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Wipro">Wipro</keyword> is making its biggest acquisition ever. It is likely Wipro has bought <keyword id="3765545" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Appirio">Appirio</keyword>, a US-based cloud consultancy firm for more than $400 million, or Rs 3,000 crore.<br />
<br /> Appirio is a prized possession as its technology enables companies to integrate cloud and on-premises applications seamlessly. The company was founded in 2006 and has Facebook, <keyword id="35191" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="nyse">NYSE</keyword> EuroNext and <keyword id="265606" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Four-Seasons">Four Seasons</keyword> among its customers. It manages complex deployments across cloud, social and mobile, equipping enterprises to integrate cloud-based software.<br />
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Appirio had revenue of $200 million in 2015.<br />
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"This would be a first class acquisition to bolster Wipro's as-a-service capabilities, cloud, mobile and digital acumen. In my view, this would represent one of the most compelling and bold moves from an Indian-heritage major to date," Phil Fersht, CEO of US-based IT advisory firm HfS Research, told ET.<br />
<br /> In earlier deals, Wipro bought <keyword id="335164" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Infocrossing">Infocrossing</keyword> for $600 million and HealthPlan Services for $460 million.<br />
<br />
Appirio was founded by Chris Barbin, Mike O'Brien, Glenn Weistein and Narinder Singh and employs over 1,200 employees.<br />
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"Saleforce.com services really gets Wipro on the map in the lucrative salesforce implementation and consulting business. Appirio's Amazon web development services around Salesforce and Heroku, where Appirio does some very impressive work for clients such as Eli Lilly, would be a major plus for Wipro and sets the firm against the likes of IBM, Capgemini and Accenture. Wipro had suffered from several failed implementations, and this would really help get it on the map as a Workday partner," Fersht told ET.<br />
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(Image: Thinkstock)<br />

Wipro is secretly making its biggest acquisition and this time it is a US-based cloud consultancy firm

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgY5OBpU5rM">YouTube/Topcoder</a></span></p><p class="caption">Appirio CEO Chris Barbin</p></div><p></p></div></div>On Thursday, Wipro <a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/54951822.cms">confirmed rumors</a> that it was buying Indianapolis-based Appirio. It paid $500 million. </p><p>Appirio was co-founded by CEO Chris Barbin in 2006 and backed by Fidelity, General Atlantic and Sequoia (Sequoia's A-list VC Jim Goetz was on its board.)</p><p>While half a billion is undoubtedly a nice exit for Barbin, WiPro didn't exactly overpay. Appirio had raised over $110 million in venture funding, including a $35 million round in April, 2015 that valued the company at $535 million, <a href="https://my.pitchbook.com/#page/profile_175703674">according to Pitchbook</a>. It was valued at $500 million prior to that last round.</p><p>Investors owned just over half the company.</p><p>Appirio is a consultant that helps businesses move to cloud computing services like Salesforce, Workday, Google Apps, Cornerstone and others. It also helps companies write custom apps on top of those services. It has about 1,250 employees but it also owns Topcoder, a startup it bought in 2013. Topcoder is a marketplace for hiring programmers, which became really popular with about 500,000 coders using it when Appirio bought it.</p><p>Appirio is particularly well known as a Salesforce consultant, so much so that Marc Benioff himself commented on the sale in the press release, saying: "Chris and his team have spend the last decade building Appirio into a global leader delivering amazing customer experiences with Salesforce. I couldn't be more proud of Appirio as it joins Wipro, where together they will continue to drive customer success on a much larger scale."</p><p>It's a bit curious that Benioff didn't buy Appirio for Salesforce, but given how he's giving this deal his public blessing, it doesn't look like his heart was broken over it.</p><p>WiPro wanted Appirio for its close partnerships with Salesforce and Workday and a customer list that includes Coca-Cola, eBay, Facebook, Home Depot, and Sony PlayStation.</p><p>And Workday's CEO Aneel Bhusri has given a similar thumbs up to the deal, saying in the press release, "Appirio has played a key role in the Workday Community, and we're thrilled to see such a great opportunity for the team's continued growth."</p><p>Before founding Appirio, Barbin was an exec at Borland International, a one-time big software developer tools maker headquartered in Scotts Valley, California, just outside the Bay Area. Micro Focus bought Borland in 2009 for $75 million.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/popup-house-pack-home-build-like-lego-pieces-2016-10">This Lego-style home can be built in a few weeks with just a screwdriver</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="05YjBzMDE698ehoE9CCcB4NUsPtDLX3L" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

This man just sold his 10-year-old company to Wipro for $500 million

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.glassdoor.com/Photos/Appirio-Office-Photos-E239630.htm">Glassdoor/Appirio</a></span></p><p class="caption">Appirio employees</p></div><p></p></div></div><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">One day soon, your company could hand you a fitness-tracking device as a gift.</span></p>
<p>The gift could have a sizeable payoff for the company. They could use it to track your fitness habits and, if you and your coworkers behave well, use that data to negotiate lower insurance premiums.</p>
<p>In fact, hot Valley startup Appirio did exactly that, <a href="http://www.citeworld.com/article/2450823/internet-of-things/appirio-fitbit-experiment.html">reports Nancy Gohring at Citeworld</a>. As part of a bigger corporate wellness program it calls CloudFit, Appirio handed out Fitbits to about 400 employees. And thanks to CloudFit, Appirio convinced its insurance company to lower its rates by 5%. That added up to a hefty <span>$280,000.</span></p>
<p><span>CloudFit isn't just the Fitbits. It includes other things, like giving employees live video sessions with a fitness trainer via Google Hangouts.</span></p>
<p>As for the Fitbits, they were actually sort of purchased by the insurance company, too. It handed Appirio $20,000 to start a wellness program, and Appirio used that money to buy fitness bands. </p>
<p>Employees got to choose if they wanted to share data with the company and what data they shared. About 100 opted in. Most were OK with sharing info about how many steps they walk each day, but not about their sleep habits.</p>
<p>These Fitbit folks also got into a social networking group at work that urged each other to up their fitness goals. So the more they tracked their fitness, the more fitness everyone pursued.</p>
<p>Appirio is in the business of writing cloud apps for enterprises, particularly in the healthcare industry. So it wrote an app to aggregate everyone's Fitbit data as part of CloudFit and that's the data it used to convinced the insurance company to lower its price.</p>
<p>For companies that won't write their own app: Fitbit actually offers an <a href="http://www.fitbit.com/fitbit-wellness">employee wellness app to companies</a> who buy fleets of devices for workers.</p>
<p>And Appirio isn't alone, either. BP America is doing a similar thing on a broader scale. In 2013, it bought Fitbits for 14,000 employees, 6,000 spouses, and 4,000 retirees in 2013 as part of a corporate wellness program, <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/04/17/the-quantified-other-nest-and-fitbit-chase-a-lucrative-side-business/">Forbes recently reported.</a> </p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">How much can everyone save? A lot. After insurance company Cigna did a fitness band pilot program, it told <span>healthcare market research firm </span><a href="http://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2014/04/23/love-your-fitbit-be-warned-companies-sell-your-data">The Advisor Board</a> it thinks employers could save 1</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">3% a year.</span></p>
<p>Thanks to provisions in the Affordable Care Act, which offers <a href="http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/newsroom/fswellnessprogram.html">companies incentives for implementing wellness programs</a>, and savings like that, more companies may try similar programs.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span>There are risks. This could become a pretty big intrusion in employee privacy, where a company nags employees, or penalizes them somehow, for not exercising or taking care of chronic illnesses. But then again, t</span></span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">hat could also lead to a healthier life.</span></p>

This Company Saved A Lot Of Money By Tracking Their Employees With Fitbits

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Thomas Barwick/Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">Angel investors participate in very early funding rounds for companies they perceive to have high-growth potential.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>Angel investing is a high-risk strategy, and there are no guarantees it'll pay off.</li><li>Four successful angel investors with varying areas of expertise shared insights with Business Insider into both how to get started in angel investing and how to succeed once you're in it.</li><li>These experts recommended finding a niche, setting a budget, and keeping your expectations low to start out.</li><li>They also suggested studying the landscape and reading books like "Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future" by Peter Thiel and "The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers" by Ben Horowitz.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/prime?module=article&amp;area=summary">Click here for more BI Prime stories.</a></li></ul><p>Angel investors participate in very early funding rounds for companies they perceive to have high-growth potential - typically pre-revenue and before they're backable by more traditional venture investors - in exchange for equity ownership interest. Oftentimes, angels have a deep passion for, and experience in, specific industries, which helps them get comfortable with the very risky capital they're deploying.</p><p>According to the <a href="https://blog.hockeystick.co/2019-u.s.-angel-investment-statistics">2019 Angel Funders Report</a> co-authored by the Angel Capital Association and Hockeystick, the median pre-money valuation of an angel-backed deal in 2019 was $6 million, up 20% from 2017. </p><p>However, angel investors, generally speaking, provide more than just personal capital but also mentorship, advice, connections, insights, support, and more to early-stage companies.</p><p>But it's certainly not for the faint of heart. Four angel investors shared with Business Insider their expert insights into both how to get started in angel investing and how to succeed once you're in it.</p><h1>Find a niche and invest where you can add value</h1><p>Most angel investors have a background and interest in a particular category, which is where they choose to invest their time and money.</p><p>For Coco Meers, now the founder of <a href="https://myeq.com/">Equilibria</a> - a female-focused CBD brand - angel investing was a way to stay connected with early-stage founders after she sold her first company, beauty-booking app PrettyQuick, to Groupon in 2015. She missed the creative stages of building a business post-exit, and early-stage founders are often in the throes of creating their models and go-to-market approaches.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Courtesy of Coco Meers</span></p><p class="caption">Coco Meers.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>"Through my angel vehicle, Rebelle Collective, I invest in women founders who have demonstrated attractive customer economics in high-growth consumer markets," said Meers. Her investments include <a href="https://www.ezzanails.com/">Ezza Nails</a>, which is reinventing the nail salon experience; direct-to-consumer travel brand <a href="https://tourparavel.com">Paravel</a>; and <a href="https://www.pearchef.com/">PearChef</a>, a private chef in luxury apartments, among others.</p><p><a href="https://www.kimperell.com/">Kim Perell</a>, entrepreneur, national bestselling author, and tech CEO, became an angel investor to pay it forward to those who helped her get where she is today. </p><p>"As an entrepreneur, I know how lonely it can be," said Perell. "When I started my first company, I was broke and unemployed, and trying to convince anyone to lend me money was an uphill battle. Thankfully, my 80-year-old grandmother made a bet on me. My goal is to pay it forward by investing in entrepreneurs who need someone to believe in them. My passion in life is to support others in achieving their dreams."</p><p>She now works within the tech, real estate, and beauty spaces - and to date, she's invested in over 70 different startups, including Humin, which was <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tinder-acquires-humin-300242335.html">acquired by Tinder</a> in 2016; Gradient X, which was <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2013/09/05/singtels-amobee-buys-las-gradient-x-to-bulk-up-its-mobile-adtech-with-real-time-bidding/">acquired in 2013</a> by SingTel for $20 million; and Adconion, which was also <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2014/06/10/amobee-buys-adconion-for-235m-and-kontera-for-150m-in-consolidation-play/">acquired by SingTel in 2014</a> for $235 million.</p><p>Chris Barbin had worked with six angel investors while at <a href="https://appirio.com/">Appirio</a>, an information technology consulting company, who inspired him to pursue angel investing after he exited the company three years ago to cofound <a href="https://siptequila.com/">SipTequila.com</a>, a direct-to-consumer platform bringing hand-curated, super-premium and boutique tequilas to market in the United States. Today, he focuses on business-to-consumer (B2C) companies and small- and medium-sized businesses (SMB) after spending his career in business-to-business (B2B) companies and larger enterprises. His investments include <a href="https://www.southerngristbrewing.com/">Southern Grist Brewing</a>, a Nashville taproom; <a href="https://www.f6s.com/youbet.io">YouBet.io</a>, an online destination for horse racing; and <a href="https://www.plushcare.com/">PlushCare</a>, a telemedicine platform.</p><p>"To me, what's most important is finding the intersection of a product or service I can personally get excited about [and] where I can have an outsized impact on their behalf," said Barbin. Basically, your relationship with a founder should be a two-way street in terms of benefits.</p><p>Phin Barnes has been a partner at leading early-stage investment fund <a href="https://firstround.com/">First Round Capital</a> since May 2012, which <a href="https://news.crunchbase.com/news/first-round-capital-targets-200m-for-seventh-flagship-fund/">reportedly raised approximately $220 million</a> between two new venture funds last year. He added that you should be clear about what you have to offer to founders besides money, and make sure the founders understand the product they are buying from you.</p><p>"This clarity will lead to more effective partnerships and help you build a group of founders who can serve as references for you as an investor," he said.</p><p>That said, Barbin advised angel investors to remember that entrepreneurs don't always necessarily want, or need, your unsolicited expertise.</p><p>"Don't be a 'board member' to an entrepreneur who you give angel money to," he explained. "Give them advice, guidance, and insights if they directly ask. But, if not, remember that, at this stage, they are probably running hard, fast, and are stressed enough."</p><h1>Adopt the mindset of investing in people, not an idea</h1><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Phin Barnes / First Round Capital</span></p><p class="caption">Phin Barnes.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Barnes loves working with founders, and he believes that founders, not venture capitalists, predict the future needs of their customer, the future of the market they will dominate, or the future emergence of the category they will define. A good investor, he says, understands that.</p><p>"At First Round, we look to founders to teach us what's next," he said. "We were fortunate to invest in Uber before the rise of the on-demand economy and Roblox before games were social platforms. We invested in Blue Apron before everyone jumped into food tech and Notion before 'no-code/low-code' was a trend."</p><p>In all of these cases, Barnes met the founders when they were just starting out, identified with their vision, and believed in their ability to create and capture the market they were attacking.</p><p>"I look for founders with enough self-awareness to know they are trying to build an outlier company, but also to recognize that their work is a continuous battle for self-improvement and for growth as a leader and as a person," said Barnes. "I love working with the relentless founder with a clear vision, where I think, 'If anyone is going to win, it's this person.'"</p><p>Ultimately, angel investing is about betting on people - so backing those you trust and believe in makes all the difference.</p><p>"I look for entrepreneurs that are willing to put skin in the game, which doesn't always have to be monetary because they might not have the capital," said Perell. "I look for people with passion, tenacity, resilience, and energy to keep moving forward long after everybody else would give up, someone who knows how to execute."</p><p>This goes for the company's employees and leadership as well as its founders. Perell would rather invest in a great team and a mediocre idea than a great idea with a mediocre team.</p><p>"Two people can have the same idea, but the one who executes best always wins," she said. "It isn't about intelligence or education either. The key to finding success as an entrepreneur is execution. Execution is the ability to do and get results, to keep moving forward to achieve your vision and goals despite the obstacles that lay ahead. This one skill is the difference between success and failure."</p><h1>Ask some tough questions about the company's potential</h1><p>While it's easy to get excited about being part of a company's first stages, Meers said there are a few difficult questions you should ask yourself before you consider investing:</p><ul><li>Do you truly understand the financial model? Could this business ever really be profitable?</li><li>Do you have conviction in the founding team? Are they truly the right team to beat the odds and make this company a success?</li><li>What are the existential risks? What's lurking out there that could cause this company to fail even when the founders make all the right moves?</li></ul><p>"It's not just about the passion in what they're doing but also what they are willing to suffer to achieve that vision," added Perell. This, she said, includes founders and investors taking the time to do the research and understand the commercial and financial models to know the risks involved in starting a business. She also bets on entrepreneurs who have tried to exercise their idea and can provide two proofs of concept or pilot programs.</p><p>"If an entrepreneur does not understand their market, the demands, or the challenges, I would not invest in them," she explained. "The most successful companies and entrepreneurs also have vision to stay ahead of the curve and understand changing dynamics." </p><h1>Set a budget and keep your expectations low</h1><p>Barnes likens divvying up your starting angel investments to a craft. </p><p>"When you commit to a craft, you should think about how much time and other resources you are willing to put toward building mastery of the craft," he said. "Think of the total budget as tuition rather than an investment that will generate returns and identify a number that is comfortable for you."</p><p>Early on, he suggested making more investments rather than making larger investments. "In fact, I think the best thing to do is make every investment a standard size rather than allowing your excitement level at the time of investment to dictate the amount of money you invest," said Barnes.</p><p>Don't just make one investment either, he added. "When you first get started, you are much better off writing 10 small checks than two or three bigger ones. You will learn more with repetition and breadth of experience. The odds are that your first check won't be going to a category-defining company, but it is the best way to learn about the process of angel investing and what it's like to work with founders," he explained.</p><p>Perell said that the typical angel investment is anywhere from $25,000 to $150,000. Like Barnes, she recommended building a portfolio of a minimum of 10 investments, in order to have a diversified portfolio.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Courtesy of Kim Perell</span></p><p class="caption">Kim Perell.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>On average, Barbin said that his personal investments range from $25,000 up to $250,000. "We set multi-year goals with our long-time trusted financial advisor for these higher risk 'personal venture' bets versus philanthropy versus a more traditional portfolio management approach, which, in our case, is relatively conservative overall," said Barbin.</p><p>There are no guarantees in angel investing, so for Barbin, any returns are 100% upside, no matter how small.</p><p>"Set a budget as a percent of your net worth, and stick to it," he said. "If you subscribe to the 'they all go to zero' rule [that the investment won't pay out], then it's probably 10 to 20% at most."</p><p>Meers agreed that angel investing requires being willing to take some big risks - and accept some financial losses. "While I'm always optimizing for return, I've certainly said goodbye to some checks," she said.</p><h1>Understand which other investors are in the early rounds, and don't shy away from later rounds either</h1><p>Generally, Perell said, the company seeking investors will disclose who else is investing. "You can understand more about the entrepreneur by understanding who their investors are,"  she explained.</p><p>Meers added that equity is an expensive form of capital for founders to take on. "The tradeoff that founders are making is that the investor partners are bringing a myriad of skill sets to bear that will ultimately increase the odds of success, from network and strategy to operating advice at scale," she said. "Understanding who the other investors are in a deal is therefore an important data point to understanding what tailwinds the founders have on their team."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Courtesy of Chris Barbin</span></p><p class="caption">Chris Barbin.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Barbin said that aspiring angel investors should look for other successful operators or proven angels in the round by investigating them via LinkedIn, Crunchbase, and on social media; noting the deals they've invested in in the past and how they've trended; and speaking directly to entrepreneurs or CEOs who've worked with them previously when considering whether to invest.</p><p>And, he continued, stay away if the other angels are, for example, aunt Betty, uncle Billy, mom, dad, and you. "If the other investors are all family, the plan and business may not have gone through any level of rigorous diligence, questioning, or vetting," he said. "This is not always a bad sign, but it does up my level of investigation and diligence."</p><p>Finally, he added that if you have access to an amazing company that happens to be later stage, there's no reason not to invest as an angel in later rounds. "It can often be easier for the founder to find room for you in a later round," he explained. </p><h1>Study up</h1><p>Angel investing is typically the riskiest type of investment for investors, so Perell recommended starting in areas where you're savvy and have expertise and also joining online angel investment groups like <a href="https://angel.co/">Angel List</a> and <a href="https://www.angelcapitalassociation.org/directory/">Angel Capital Association</a>.</p><p>Barnes suggested reading Nike creator Phil Knight's memoir "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Shoe-Dog-Memoir-Creator-Nike/dp/1501135910/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0">Shoe Dog</a>" as a "great reminder of how long it takes to build an enduring business and how hard it is." He also follows the writing and movements of investors Ron Conway, Reid Hoffman, Marc Andreessen, and Jim Goetz and is a fan of "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804139296">Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future</a>" by Peter Thiel and "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Thing-About-Things-Building-ebook/dp/B00DQ845EA">The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers</a>" by Ben Horowitz, touting the books as "must-reads for angels and entrepreneurs alike."</p><p>Barnes' company First Round also offers <a href="https://angeltrack.firstround.com/">Angel Track</a>, a program that brings together a community of established operators and founders looking to develop their skills and identities as early-stage investors in San Francisco and New York.</p><p>"They hear from the best in the industry and learn that investing is about more than just writing a check," he said. "It's about being a resource for feedback, advice, and capital to founders."</p><p>He added that "Regardless of the entry point, whether it's Angel Track or programs like it, angel investing is what you make of it and the best way to start is to write that first check."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-happens-when-run-marathon-2017-5">4 terrible things that happen to your body when you run a marathon</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

4 investors explain how to get started in angel investing - and how to succeed once you're in it

<p><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:401px"><div class="image"></div><p class="source"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/newspress/6636584247/">Sam Hurd via Flickr </a></p><p class="caption">Arianna Huffington, successful immigrant.</p></div>ON APRIL 19th Jack Markell, the governor of Delaware, is due to visit a new factory being built in his state by Bloom Energy, a start-up based in Silicon Valley. Bloom makes clean power-generation systems using a novel fuel-cell technology. It is investing over $40m in its facility in Newark and plans to hire hundreds of people. Some will be carworkers who lost their jobs in 2008 when Chrysler shuttered a factory that once stood on the same site. Gary Convis, Bloom’s chief operations officer, says that the company has already hired over 100 former carworkers at its existing site in Silicon Valley. They used to work at a Toyota factory in the Bay Area, which closed in 2010.</p>
<p>K.R. Sridhar, Bloom’s boss, says auto workers make good hires. His firm’s products have some systems in them similar to ones found in car engines. Bloom is also hiring military veterans used to tinkering with motors. "We are creating the next generation of jobs for middle-class Americans," says Mr Sridhar, an immigrant from India who was an academic and an adviser to NASA before co-founding Bloom.</p>
<p>Like many other entrepreneurs who have come to America and gone on to found businesses, Bloom’s boss is worried that the country’s <keyword id="50403" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Immigration">immigration</keyword> policies are hurting its prospects. Other tech moguls are also concerned. Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of Facebook, and a bunch of other Silicon Valley types are planning to launch a well-funded political-advocacy group to lobby for more visas for skilled immigrants. Applications for this year’s quota of 65,000 "H-1B" visas for such workers began on April 1st. In less than a week they were oversubscribed.</p>
<p>Congress is working to reform immigration laws. Tech folk hope it will open America’s doors to the legions of brainy foreigners clamouring to come in. But the final reform may be less bold. Many voters believe that newcomers steal jobs from natives. Companies are doing little to refute this myth, despite ample evidence.</p>
<p>Some 40% of Fortune 500 firms were founded by immigrants or their children, according to the Partnership for a New American Economy, a pressure group. So were the firms behind seven of the ten most valuable brands in the world. Although the foreign-born are only an eighth of America’s population, a quarter of high-tech start-ups have an immigrant founder (see left-hand chart).</p>
<p>New firms have an impact across America. "We haven’t told enough stories about high-tech job creation inspired by young firms," says Michael McGeary of Engine, an advocacy group for start-ups. Last year Engine sponsored a study that showed high-tech employment growing fastest in places you might not associate with bits and bytes (see right-hand chart). Many start from a low base. But it is clear that high-tech jobs are spreading beyond Silicon Valley and New York.</p>
<p>Some are being created by start-ups local to the area. Others are being offered by firms such as ZocDoc, a New York start-up that helps people find doctors and dentists, and lets them make appointments online. In March the company opened an office near Phoenix, where it plans to add 650 staff over the next three years. Oliver Kharraz, a German who is one of ZocDoc’s co-founders, says the firm, which employs some 400 people, needed a presence out west to help it serve customers there and drive new sales. It also wanted to ensure that business would keep ticking over even if New York were to be hit by a hurricane again.</p>
<p><table class="image-container" width="200"><tr><td><div class="image"></div><p class="source">The Economist</p></td></tr></table></p>
<p>Other companies in tech hubs have opened faraway offices to tap new pools of skilled labour. Appirio, which advises companies on cloud-computing strategies, has opened an office in Indianapolis. "Lots of talented students are hungry for tech jobs, which are rare there," says Narinder Singh, one of the company’s co-founders, whose parents came to America from India. RingCentral, a Silicon Valley firm that supplies cloud-based phone systems to businesses, has hired 74 staff in an office in Denver that opened in 2011. Vlad Shmunis, the firm’s Ukraine-born founder, says it wanted to be near another big university that could be a source of smart employees.</p>
<p>Soaring salaries and extortionate rents in big tech centres encourage start-ups to hire elsewhere. Gild, a young San Francisco firm applying "big data" techniques to the recruitment of software engineers, is planning to open an office in Salt Lake City, where the tussle for talent is less ferocious. "It wouldn’t surprise me if the Salt Lake office becomes bigger than the San Francisco one in future," says Sheeroy Desai, a co-founder of Gild who came to America from Pakistan in the 1980s to study.</p>
<p>Logistics matter, too. Bloom Energy decided to open a factory in Delaware to make it easier to get its fuel cells, which are the size of a small car, to customers on the east coast. And View, another immigrant-founded Californian start-up, has opened its only factory in Mississippi, where it employs some 150 people to produce smart windows that change tint to alter the amount of heat and light entering a building without obscuring the view for those inside it. The firm chose a site near Memphis because it is a good place from which to ship stuff to the rest of America.</p>
<p>High-tech jobs matter not just to software engineers, scientists and the folk working in factories such as Bloom’s and View’s. They also have a broader impact on employment. Engine’s report estimates that for every job created in the high-tech sector, another 4.3 jobs emerge over time in the local economy. That is more than three times the local "multiplier" for manufacturing jobs. Well-paid techies shop a lot and hire others to iron their shirts (if they wear shirts, that is).</p>
<p>High-tech firms such as Google (whose co-founder Sergey Brin moved to America from Russia as a child) haven’t just created jobs for their own workers. They have also inspired the creation of entirely new categories of job. A few years ago no one earned a living as a mobile-app developer. Now they are everywhere. It is not just full-time workers who benefit: firms such as oDesk, a Silicon Valley outfit founded by two Greeks, are nurturing an online freelance economy that is in its infancy. Last year Americans using oDesk’s platform found over 2m hours of freelance work.</p>
<p>Given all this, it is worrying that the proportion of start-ups in Silicon Valley founded by immigrants has fallen from 52% to 44% since 2005, according to the Kauffman Foundation, a think-tank. In America as a whole, the proportion has stopped climbing for the first time in decades. Vivek Wadhwa, the author of "The Immigrant Exodus", suspects this is because the government has made it so much harder for immigrants to obtain permanent residency. Without a green card, brainy foreigners who quit their day jobs to start new companies risk deportation.</p>
<p>Immigrant entrepreneurs seldom make their own case well in public. Having spent so long trying to fit in, they are often reluctant to draw attention to the fact that they were born elsewhere, observes Scott Sandell of NEA Associates, a venture-capital firm that has backed many of them.</p>
<p>The stakes are high. America has benefited enormously from immigrants’ resourcefulness and penchant for risk-taking, says Mr Sridhar. But it lets in only 225,000 foreigners with special skills a year. This amounts to less than 0.1% of the total labour force. Proportionally, some of the country’s rivals let in more. America’s job-generating machine cannot run at full throttle for long if it is starved of fuel.</p>
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