Letters from Silicon Valley - Week 3: Start-up Visa

By Andrew McCalister on Mar 14, 10 02:56 AM in Letters from Silicon Valley

As you can imagine with an office in Silicon Valley that has a 50 per cent British workforce, the conversation can very often circulate around visas.

Generally this consists of trading techniques in avoiding deportation, spliced with random letters of the alphabet in reference to document types (J1, H1B, O1,etc). To any outsiders it must sound rather odd.

Recently there has been a sense of urgency about these chats due to changes in legislation.

Many founders who move to Silicon Valley do so on an H1B Visa. Unfortunately this is no longer an option, meaning you have two alternative strategies.

Firstly, you could apply for an 'Extraordinary Ability' (O1) Visa, but as you can imagine with an application that asks if you have previously won a Nobel Prize or Fields Medal this is rather tough to obtain. Secondly, you may apply for an Investors Visa (E2), again the hurdles are rather high. $200,000 will have to be invested in your company, which of course you would have had to pitch for remotely.

However, common sense has prevailed. Say hello to the Start-up Visa. It has been gaining some significant traction, with backing from Senators John Kerry and Richard Lugar (Democrat and Republican respectively).

In addition, it has signed support from over 100 of the top VC and angel investors, including the likes of Fred Wilson and Ron Conway (the full list can be seen here).

One of the major positives of the movement is that permanent residence is actually obtainable! After two years, if the company has created five full-time jobs for American citizens and has generated either $1M in revenue or received $1M in funding, automatic legal residence is suppled.

As I'm sure you will agree, not exactly a big ask for any aspiring start-up!

The language used in describing the Visa has also had a significant impact on its momentum. I was recently at a discussion with Eric Ries (one of the creators of the Start-up Visa) and he emaphsised their push on 'job creation', not 'immigration' which is always a touchy subject.

If you want to find out a bit more, or even show support, give a click here.