Trump’s Border Crackdown Spooks International Founders & VCs
Plus, a16z leads the most Series A rounds for future unicorns
This week, we heard from 10+ immigrant startup founders and investors who have been making contingency plans after President Trump ramped up immigration enforcement. Sarah Tavel takes a step back at Benchmark, while fresh analysis shows Benchmark is among the highest-performing investors at Series A, alongside the megafunds a16z, Sequoia, and Accel. Elon Musk returns to an impatient Tesla board and Sam Altman’s iris-scanning World network hits the streets.
Reminder, don’t forget to apply for Breaking the Bank if you’re a fintech founder, investor, or insider. We’re almost a month away. The summit is May 20 in San Francisco. We’ll have the CEOs of Plaid, Lead Bank, Rogo, Gusto, Kraken, Ramp, and more on stage.
The Cerebral Valley AI Summit will be in London on June 25.
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The Main Item
Startup Founders on Visas & Green Cards Brace For Business Disruption
For immigrant tech founders without US citizenship, the first few months of Trump’s second presidency have added another distressing layer of uncertainty on top of the already chaotic business of building a company.
With the Trump administration targeting students and blocking tourists from entering the US, startup founders with temporary visas and green cards are increasingly worried that they need to play it safe or risk the ability to run their companies from the US.
For instance, Raj, a startup founder whose name has been changed to protect his identity, had lived in the US for years on a student visa, and in February he landed his O-1 visa, issued to “aliens of extraordinary ability” to work in the US temporarily. That process was smooth, and he hopes to get a green card eventually.
In the meantime, though, he won’t risk leaving the country, and his annual trips to visit family in India are off. “I have no plans to travel for the next two years,” he said. Two other immigrant founders told me they were also cancelling travel plans.
Startup founders who aren't citizens now face heightened scrutiny of their presence in the United States and fresh questions about their long-term prospects. For entrepreneurs looking to come to the US, visa applications are already seeing heavier scrutiny and longer processing times, immigration lawyers say.
There are several possible pathways for international startup founders, with the two types of visas for people with “extraordinary ability” among them most common. The O-1 visa is only good for temporary residence but doesn’t require an employer sponsor, while the EB-1 is a path to a green card for those with extraordinary ability and a large income. Some EB-1s require an employer sponsor, while the EB1-A can be self-sponsored.
EB-1 holders have to show earnings in the 90th percentile for equivalent job holders in their field and location, which can be impossible for early-stage startup founders.
“I think the reason a lot of entrepreneurs don’t try for this visa is because the bar is hard and a lot of the criteria is really outdated.” said Andrew Yeung, founder of the startup events company Fibe. “Many people stay at large tech companies for years — decades in some cases — [waiting] for their green cards to arrive, and never leave to pursue startup building because of how hard it’s perceived to be to get an entrepreneurship visa.”
Yeung qualified for an O-1 visa last year and was approved last week for an EB-1, after months of waiting.
After all the paperwork is filed, including extensive evidence of the candidate's abilities, O-1’s typically take anywhere from 15 days for expedited cases to the more standard 3 months, while EB-1’s often take 6-8 months to process.
But if an application is flagged for a request for additional evidence, or an RFE, the process can take much longer.
While it’s always been true that these visas and green cards have strict criteria to meet, President Trump’s January executive order mandates that DHS engage in “enhanced vetting” for all visa applicants, including those already in the country. Immigration attorneys are anticipating a significant ramp up of application delays and denials in the coming months.
Ali Ramezanzadeh, managing partner attorney at the immigration-focused legal services startup Ellis, said there’s been a rise in visa applications being flagged for Requests for Evidence (RFEs) for his clients this year.
During the first Trump administration, the number of RFE requests went up to around 30% for H-1B visa applications, according to another tech-focused lawyer. RFE rates for O-1’s have been creeping back up to those levels over the last four months, the attorney said.
I spoke with an early-stage AI startup founder from the UK who’d decided to move his company’s headquarters to the United States, to be closer to talent and customers. He was concerned about Trump and pushed to get all of his and his cofounder’s paperwork through in December, with the aim of getting to San Francisco ahead of inauguration day.
Despite his best efforts, it took until January to hear back — after Trump had already taken office. While his visa application went smoothly, his cofounder ended up facing an RFE request, which delayed his arrival by several months. He has since successfully relocated.
Visa denials and cancellations still appear to be rare, though cases are emerging. Last Friday, one of OpenAI’s senior researchers Kai Chen shared on X that her green card application to work in the US was denied, forcing her to relocate to Vancouver. It caused an uproar from leaders at the company on X, who soundly rejected the move. Per Chen’s posts, OpenAI has been accommodating her requests to work remotely until the issue is resolved, and her employment remains stable for now.
But even the increased scrutiny is having ripple effects.
Two investors who are immigrants themselves told me that their portfolio founders abroad who had planned to come to the US had changed their minds out of fear of increased immigration scrutiny.
The immigration crackdown also means that big tech workers on visas or who hold green cards who would have otherwise left larger firms to start companies are simply holding tight, a VC told me on background.
“Founders and employees alike do not know how to underwrite the immigrant risk,” the VC said.
Industry groups like the National Venture Capital Association have lobbied for Congress to create a “startup visa” that would make it easier for entrepreneurs to move and build in the United States, an idea with a long history of bipartisan support. But the GOP blocked any action under Biden, and the NVCA is now petitioning Trump on the issue again.
In the meantime, non-citizens of any sort are taking precautions. Jasmine, an early-stage consumer founder out of San Francisco whose name we have changed, hasn’t canceled her travel plans for later in May just yet, but told me she’s taking a backup cell phone instead of her regular device in case she’s stopped at customs, and plans to keep physical copies of her attorney’s contact information on her person at all times.
“The fact that you have to think about calling your attorney from the border — it's a very different mindset.”
Newcomer Podcast
Josh Wolfe on America’s Next War and Why It Isn’t Taiwan
Madeline returns from her dispatch to Washington DC at this week’s Hill and Valley Forum, where VCs and founders were bright-eyed about American manufacturing re-shoring and winning the AI race against China.
Later on, Josh Wolfe joins the podcast for a lively discussion on everything from Trump’s tariffs to his strategic plan for America to form new global alliances.
But first, we had to opine on Ben Smith’s incredible group chat story about how private chats cataloged Silicon Valley’s rightward tilt. We’re still available if anyone wants to accidentally add us.
One Big Chart
Early Stage Venture Prices Rise Faster Than Deal Count
Investors keep saying that when it comes to the hottest early-stage deals, it feels like 2021 again. That’s partially true for the deal prices, but the pace of deals has been considerably slower than it was during the peak of the boom, according to fresh Carta data.
“This disconnect could explain “why the average founder feels disconnected from the AI raises in TechCrunch headlines," Carta's Head of Insights Peter Walker wrote on X.
Investor Concentration
A16z, Sequoia, Accel, and Benchmark Top High-Performing Series A List
There's a reason why certain venture firms have LPs constantly scrambling to back their funds: they are responsible for a majority of the rare early-stage deals that produce giant returns.
Of all the Series A deals done between 2012 and 2025, nine VC firms accounted for more than half of those that led to valuations of $5 billion or higher, according to an analysis from DST Global’s Cole Rotman. A16z came in first place with 11 deals, followed by Sequoia and Accel with 7 deals each, and Benchmark with 6.
“This is a concentrated market where just nine VCs — a16z, Sequoia, Accel, Benchmark, Index, Lightspeed, Matrix, Khosla, and Greylock — collectively led more than 50% of all $5 billion+ outcome Series A rounds since 2012,” Rotman wrote via email.
Of the top four firms, Rotman notes that Benchmark’s hit rate relative to how few deals they do is particularly impressive: “Between 2013 and 2018, c. 30% of the Series A rounds they led almost every year became $5 billion+ outcomes.”
Seed investing does not share this same concentration of firms in the best outcomes, noted Rotman, in part because there are very few seed firms with this level of deal markup concentration besides Y Combinator.
VC Directory Update
Sarah Tavel Transitions to Venture Partner at Benchmark
Longtime Benchmark general partner Sarah Tavel announced Tuesday that she would be transitioning into a less hands-on role as a “venture partner” after 8 years at the firm.
In a post on X, Tavel said she will still be making some investments and will keep her existing company board seats, but plans to spend more time “exploring AI.”
Benchmark traditionally keeps a lean, equal partnership amongst its GPs and caps the firm at 6 or fewer, with all the general partners sharing fees and returns. The firm raised a new $425 million fund in July, according to The Information, and is also raising a separate “Benchmark Partners Founders’ Fund I” with capital coming primarily from the firm’s partners, per an SEC filing.
The firm most recently found itself in the news for investing in the Chinese startup Manus AI, per Bloomberg, during a time of staunch hawkishness towards China from most other venture capitalists.
Here’s an updated rundown on Benchmark:
The firm was founded by Bob Kagle, Kevin Harvey, Andy Rachleff, and Bruce Dunlevie in 1995. General partner Bill Gurley joined the firm in 1999, and went on to lead Benchmark’s $11 million early investment in Uber. Gurley has since stepped back from investing at Benchmark, as have general partners Matt Cohler and Mitch Lasky.
Active Funds
Benchmark Partners 1 (2024): $425 million
Benchmark Capital Partners X (2020): $425 million
Who
The current active general partners are Chetan Puttagunta, Eric Vishria, Peter Fenton, and Victor Lazarte. Sarah Tavel serves as a venture partner.