The Kauffman Index of Growth Entrepreneurship is an early indicator of business growth in the United States, integrating several high-quality sources of timely information into one composite indicator of entrepreneurial business growth. The Index captures growth entrepreneurship in all industries, and is based on the universe of all U.S. employer businesses (approximately 5 million firms) and a privately collected benchmark of growth businesses. This allows us to measure business growth from both revenue and job creation perspectives. Moreover, we also present trends on business exits—more particularly initial public offerings, a business milestone commonly associated with innovative, high-growth companies.
This new report shows that U.S. entrepreneurial businesses are growing, and rose in the last year for the third year in a row. This year's increase was driven by startups growing faster in their first five years than they were in previous years, and more young companies scaling up employment. The entrepreneurial activity increase in the 2016 Index represents the largest year-over-year increase in the past decade. Despite these promising markers, however, many U.S. growth indicators remain in a long-term decline.