IM Yearbook 2020/21

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
The Many Faces of
Business Migration
Entrepreneurs, start-up founders and digital nomads:
Here’s how they are shaping business migration today
As an alternative or an addition to the residency-by-investment route, a new generation of
visa programmes is increasingly leaving their mark on immigration systems worldwide.
Alexander
Varnavas
Chad
Ellsworth
Stéphane
Tajick
Savvas
Poyiadjis
Juerg
Steffen
The words ‘Silicon Valley’ can evoke
many things – innovation, growth
and unicorn start-ups certainly
come first to mind – but more than
anything else Silicon Valley is a showcase
of immigrant success. No one illustrates
this better than Tesla and SpaceX CEO
Elon Musk who was born in South
Africa and became a US citizen in 2002.
Musk is the prime example of a category
of immigrants that many countries are
currently seeking to attract: talented
entrepreneurs and start-up founders.
While traditional entrepreneur visas
have been around for a long time, and
it’s also not the first time that start-up
visa initiatives are popular, many in the
investment migration industry believe
that these types of programmes will not
only increase in numbers but become
more economically important in the
coming years. They are widely seen as
more politically acceptable than the
conventional residency-by-investment
programmes and offer countries the
opportunity to promote themselves as a
globally competitive player and innovation
nation. Meanwhile, some governments are
seeking to attract a completely new breed
of professionals by introducing digital
nomad visas. Pioneer Estonia is being
followed by others, including traditional
CBI countries such as Antigua & Barbuda.
Anti-Immigration Trend
In most advanced economies, immigration
is a highly debated issue politically and
across society. When politicians discuss
migration, they usually talk about threats
rather than opportunities. The arguments
against it are similar everywhere: migrants
take jobs from locals, lower wages, don’t
integrate with society, strain public
resources and bring crime to the country.
Khalid Koser, Executive Director of the
Global Community Engagement and
Resilience Fund points out that there is
a polarisation of views between those
who champion migrants and those
who believe all migrants, and especially
wealthy migrants, are criminals.
In fact, immigration worries drove some
of the biggest upheavals of the past decade
– the election of Donald Trump, the rise of
populism in Europe and Britain’s decision
to break away from the EU. In this climate, it
comes as no surprise that entrepreneur and
start-up programmes are an easier sell for
governments as they attempt to transform
immigration from being a potential or
perceived economic burden to society
into a tool for economic development,
argues Fragomen’s Chad Ellsworth.
The Dying Entrepreneurs
Meanwhile, there is the general feeling that
the West’s golden age of entrepreneurship
and innovation is behind it. Various studies
show that no matter what measure or
definition of entrepreneurship is being
used, the underlying trend is downward.
“The Western world has been looking
at a demographic problem for decades
now. We have brought immigrants to
replace the ageing labour force, but there
is a large deficit in the replacement of the
entrepreneur class,” says Stéphane Tajick,
President and Head Advisor of Stéphane
Tajick Consulting. Many businesses owned
by the babyboomers are facing succession
issues with not enough buyers to keep those
assets alive, especially outside large cities.
“In Canada, we estimated that billions of
dollars are disappearing from our economy
because businesses are left to die. This
is a problem that Western Europe is also
facing and that immigrant entrepreneurs
could help solve,” he points out.
Politicians and economists are
increasingly interested in the question
of how migrants shape the economy
and how they influence national
innovation, economic growth and sector
competitiveness. Various studies show that
immigrants are more likely to establish their
own businesses, and there is plenty of data
that can be mined proving that immigration
is actually boosting economic growth. In
the US, migrants set up about 30% of all
businesses, even though they account for
just 14% of the population. Studies from
the UK show that immigrants were roughly
twice as likely as British-born individuals
to establish their own companies.
Start-up Mania
Most advanced economies today have a
complex system of immigration programmes
designed to maximise a county’s economic
competitiveness, including business visa for
professionals not sponsored by a destinationcountry
employer as well as channels for
the highly skilled. Start-ups, however, were
long excluded from the business migration
world as their business ideas and projects
were too unconventional and early-stage
for entrepreneur visa. In addition, many
start-up founders have eschewed degrees in
favour of entrepreneurship, which means
they do not qualify for programmes seeking
to attract highly skilled professionals
as these are often tied to a degree.
Start-up visas have attempted to fill
this gap. They have become increasingly
popular in recent years as they allow a
country to market itself specifically to young,
high-potential and innovative founders.
Traditional immigration nations such as
Canada, Australia and New Zealand have
introduced them, but so have a number
of European countries, including Ireland,
Spain, Denmark, the Netherland, Estonia,
Latvia, Portugal and Finland. In Asia,
countries such as Japan, South Korea,
Singapore and Thailand, all offer startup
visas in one form or another, while
in South America nations such as Chile
and Brazil launched them too. It is no
coincidence that many countries added
a tech focus – which country would not
want to attract the next Elon Musk?
Investment Migration Yearbook 2O2O/2O21 65