High-growth firms represent a small share of businesses in OECD countries, but disproportionately drive national economic activity. This paper examines migrants' role in founding high-growth firms, and the urban nature of high-growth entrepreneurship. Using novel founder- and company-level data on over 12,000 UK companies and 15,000 founders, we analyse the characteristics of migrant founders and the firms that they build. We establish six new facts. First, relative to the UK migrant population, migrant entrepreneurs are substantially over-represented among founders of high-growth potential firms. Second, compared to UK-born founders, migrant founders are positively selected on human capital, but negatively selected on entrepreneurial experience. Third, high-growth potential firms are highly urbanised, and those with a migrant (co-)founder display a distinctive urban geography. Fourth, firms with mixed native-migrant founding teams show faster employment and revenue growth than all-UK teams. All-migrant teams show weaker growth premia. Fifth, compared with UK-born founded firms, firms with mixed native-migrant founding teams have more distinctive strategic positioning, with fewer peers. Sixth, for co-founded firms, our results vary by birth countries, first language and urban location. Migrant-founded firms in London and conurbations exhibit the largest performance premia.

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9 November 2026     Paper Number CEPDP2231

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This CEP discussion paper is published under the centre's Growth programme.