A new fund announced during Chicago Tech Week last week aims to invest in the next generation of immigrant founders.
The American Dream Fund, based in Chicago, hopes to raise $10 million to invest in startups.
Chicago-based Migrate Ventures will operate the American Dream Fund with Venture Atlas out of Columbus, Ohio.
Fiona McEntee, an immigration attorney and managing partner at Migrate Ventures, has been named CEO of the new fund, which is co-managed with Venture Atlas CEO Wolf Starr and Colleen Egan, another managing partner at Migrate and CEO of the Illinois Science and Technology Coalition.
Immigrants make up 17% of the workforce but have founded more than half of U.S. tech unicorns valued at $1 billion or more, research from the new fund shows. In Chicago alone, 21 Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or the child of an immigrant, and 42% of university-supported startups in Illinois are founded by at least one immigrant entrepreneur, according to research from the Illinois Science and Technology Coalition.
Still, accessing capital and growing a deep network can be difficult for those that didn't grow up here, McEntee told Chicago Inno.
"Immigrants have historically done extremely well in the startup scene in the U.S., but if you didn't grow up in the U.S., chances are you're not going to have that deep network and you might need people to open doors for you and make those intros," she said.
McEntee said the American Dream Fund is starting raise money now with some early commitments. She said the early-stage fund would write checks anywhere from $100,000 to $400,000. She didn't have an exact number of how many startups the fund would support and didn't expect it to be industry-specific.
"I came to the U.S. from Ireland as an international student and have been practicing as an immigration attorney for nearly 16 years," she said. "I've walked with startup founders on their journey and I've seen what they can do if they can do if they get access to critical things they need like funding."
