A recently-released study of venture capital-funded businesses shows that immigrants play a dominant role in starting and managing new companies in the United States. The nation's immigration policies have been criticized for pushing away immigrant talent by being too harsh for would-be foreign entrepreneurs.

The "Immigrant Founders and Key Personnel" report, released by the nonprofit National Foundation for American Policy, shows that almost half of the top 50 VC-funded start-ups in the U.S. were started by or formed with the help of an immigrant.

For many, like the co-owners and CEOs of the international dating service Zoosk, the path to American business ownership was arduous. The Iranian-born friends were educated in the U.S. and wanted to start an engineering software firm. The men were advised to find jobs with existing companies that would sponsor them as employees, a path the men followed for three years.

One of the Zoosk founders applied for and won an immigration diversity visa lottery in 2006. The other future-CEO secured permanent residency not long after his partner received a green card. Both quit their jobs with Microsoft and NASA within a year to begin Zoosk.

Zoosk raised $40 million in start-up money for a company that now employs more than 100 people. Half of the money Zoosk makes is funneled from foreign sources to the U.S.

The owners of the dating service say tough, current U.S. visa laws force many would-be entrepreneurs to look elsewhere like Canada or Germany to open businesses.

The U.S. House recently approved the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act, which increases the number of job-based visas, without adding extra visas for entrepreneurs. Current laws allow foreign business people to obtain a visa with a minimum $500,000 U.S. business investment, which critics say excludes talented immigrants who cannot buy their way through the immigration procedure.

The NFAP study of venture capital companies revealed that 46 percent were started by at least one foreign-born founder. Three-fourths have high-ranking immigrant managers. Each start-up employs an average of 150 people.

Source: inc.com, "Report: Immigrants Found Nearly Half of Top Start-ups," Eric Markowitz, Dec. 20, 2011