美国基金为外籍创业者解决签证难题
A new investment fund is bringing Silicon Valley’s problem-solving hacker ethos to US immigration law, looking to tackle the problem of potential entrepreneurs held back by a visa regime that has long frustrated the technology industry.
一家新成立的投资基金以硅谷解决问题的黑客精神来应对美国移民法，帮助解决因签证受阻的未来企业家的困难。科技产业长期受到签证制度的阻碍。
The fund, named Unshackled, and backed by co-founders of Yahoo and Palantir, has raised $3.5m to give early stage funding to foreigners working in the US who want to quit their job and launch a start-up but cannot because they need an employer to sponsor their visa.
这个名为“Unshackled”（除去枷锁）的基金受到雅虎(Yahoo)和Palantir的创始人们的支持，目前已筹集到350万美元，用于为那些在美国工作的外国创业者提供前期资金——这些人想要辞职创办公司，但由于需要雇主担保签证而无法脱身。Unlike traditional venture funds, which invest capital in exchange for equity, Unshackled will take equity but also hire founders as employees, allowing them to keep their work visas while building their companies.
传统的风险投资基金以投资换股权，Unshackled却与之不同，它既接受股权，又将企业创始人聘请为员工，让他们在创办公司时得以保留工作签证。
Manan Mehta, Unshackled’s co-founder and the son of immigrants who moved to the US from India in the 1970s, said: “Every entrepreneur that we’re targeting is at a greater advantage because of the hustle that they’ve had to prove to get to this country and pursue the American dream.”
Unshackled的联合创始人马南•梅塔(Manan Mehta)也是移民后代，他的父辈在20世纪70年代从印度移居美国。梅塔说：“我们所看中的每一位创业者都有极大的优势，因为他们具有积极奋斗的精神才会来到这个国家并追求美国梦。”Current US immigration law has frustrated the Valley, where tech companies say they face a shortage of engineers and starting salaries for young developers can top $100,000. The US offers far fewer visas for skilled foreign workers, known as H-1Bs, than the number of applications it receives, and few executives are optimistic that the federal government will raise that cap soon.
美国现行移民法已阻碍了硅谷的发展，这里的高科技公司表示他们面临着工程师短缺的问题，年轻开发人员起薪可超10万美元。美国针对外国专业人才发放的H-1B签证远低于申请数量，对于联邦政府是否会很快增加签证发放数量，高管们大多不抱乐观想法。For foreigners who win the H-1B lottery, launching a company of their own is tricky as they must remain formally employed to keep the visa. Unshackled proposes to solve that problem by transferring work visas from the entrepreneurs’ current employers to Unshackled and then helping them incorporate and build their start-ups.
即使H-1B中彩，拿到签证的外国人也很难开创公司，因为他们必须维持正式工作以保留签证。Unshackled为解决该问题提出了建议，创业者可将工作签证从当前雇主公司转移到Unshackled，然后Unshackled会帮助他们组建公司。Under current law, foreign founders have taken various routes to stay in the US. One San Francisco-based European entrepreneur trying to transfer an existing H-1B visa to his own company has had to show that his board could fire him and that he owns only a minority of the company. He now meets those criteria after his company has raised millions of dollars in several funding rounds.
受制于现行法律，外国创始人为留在美国采取了各种途径。旧金山的一个欧洲企业家正试图将现有的H-1B签证转移到他自己的公司，条件是他必须证明他的董事会可以解雇他，而且他只拥有公司的少数股权。在其公司从几轮融资中得到数百万美元资金后，他终于符合了上述条件。He says friends of his, also from overseas, have gone through Valley incubators and hired local engineers but have had to return to their home countries to await their own visas.
据这位欧洲企业家表示，他有几位同样来自海外的朋友在硅谷得到了成长，他们创业并聘用了当地工程师，却不得不回到自己国家等待签证。
