EU-Inc
p/eu-inc
Let's create a pan-european startup entity
Andreas Klinger
EU-Inc β€” Let's create a pan-european startup entity
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Europe – we need your help. Please sign this petition to create a pan-european legal entity for European Startups. The goal is to remove complexity & beaucracy for founders and investors across Europe. Effectively uniting the European ecosystems.
Replies
Andreas Klinger
Hey folks Andreas here, i was founding team of Product Hunt and its first CTO. We are doing something special today - we launched a pan-european petition that aims to fix Europe for startups. www.eu-inc.org The very first step in fixing Europe for startups is to get rid of the national silos we all face in our ecosystem. Ever wondered why it's so hard to raise money in your country in Europe? Because angels from neighboring countries would barely invest in your country - usually due to not wanting to deal with your local legal+tax systems. The outcome is that in Europe less than 18% of all early investments is pan-european, where-as in the USA coast-to-coast investing is super common. But we can fix this. How? By creating a shared legal entity as a standard across Europe. Think US Delaware Inc + YC SAFE notes but for Europe - it's obviously more complex in practice but it's doable (see https://www.eu-inc.org/faq ) And even more rare - there is very strong political will to make this happen. What we as the startup industry need to do is to show that this is a #1 priority. We got 6 weeks until the work agenda of for the next Commission (think years of work) is defined. We need to make our voice heard and quite literally get everyone of the European Startup Ecosystem to sign this. You, me, everyone in your team, your investor, everyone in your portfolio's teams, the founders in your whatsapp, slack and discord groups. Everyone. If we speak up together. We can create a pivotal improvement for startups - quite like the biggest improvement for European Startups in our generation. Among the first co-signatories are people like Patrick (Stripe), Taavet (Wise), Index Ventures, Sequoia, Atomico, and hundreds more - and we just started yesterday! We have 6 weeks to make this happen! This petition is for anyone who wants to make Europe more startup-friendly - hopefully you included! Please go to www.eu-inc.org and sign now!
Mariam Hakobyan
@andreasklinger 100% with you! Building a successful business is already hard, legal and tax should be a default setting.
Johan Steneros
Regulation & Bureaucracy is destroying innovation in Europe. Great to see someone is trying to fix this huge problem.
Balazs
Would love to see this come through! One of the (few) reasons why it is even painful to think about EU based entrepreneurship.
Nicolas Le Roux
Great design and we really need this in Europe! Thanks for the ones working on this ;)
Tibo
I absolutely love this initiative. Thank you very much for doing this. I truly hope that we improve how Europe is doing right now.
Viktor Nyblom
Lets go! I hope this is a first step towards a brighter future for EU and startup founders alike! πŸš€
Johannes Schickling
πŸ”₯πŸ”₯
Joshua Voydik
American maker here. You have our full support.
Dean McPherson
Love this! Not European, but anything to streamline bureaucracy for new businesses is great for the whole world πŸ‘πŸ‘πŸ‘
AndrΓ© J
πŸ™ please make a linkedin company profile so we can follow the progress on this. thanks
Henry Scott-Green
As a European founder this is sorely needed!
Owen Far
As a European myself, this would be great! Hope it goes through till the end
Jonathan Viet Pham
Congrats on launching the EU-Inc petition! A unified legal framework for European startups could revolutionize the startup ecosystem. How do you envision this impacting cross-border investments and collaboration in Europe?
Ivan LR
A vital initiative for the European startup ecosystem. Lets go!
Glenn McWhinney
This had me at "hello"! I'm a British citizen and to be clear, that means I live in Europe but not in a country which is a member of the EU (since Brexit). That distinction needs to be made.πŸ‘ I started a new business with my partners recently and as a team, we didn't want to incorporate in England as we wanted to be part of a bigger ecosystem so we used Stripe Atlas and set ourselves up in Delaware, USA. The process was so simple even though none of us are US citizens. I'm imagining a European equivalent where business owners and investors alike can come together without barriers? If this is what EU Inc. will be like, even if it's close to what we experienced with Atlas, this could be the start of a brand new era for commerce in Europe as people flock towards it. Petition signed, spreading the word, totally onboard.
Steven Renwick
@theflowagency to be fair, the UK was more or less the European Delaware until it did Brexit. Loads of German startups started as UK Ltds., as it is so simple to start and to invest in.
Andreas Klinger
@theflowagency @major_grooves as someone who had a UK LTD - 100% yes - brexit killed this option unfortunately
Glenn McWhinney
@major_grooves @andreasklinger ...and yet if you asked me whether I'd prefer us to be a US Inc. or an EU Inc. (if it had to be one or the other) I'd prefer to keep it local and be part of European growth as this is my home turf! Bring it onπŸ’ͺ
Pierre-Yves Dubreucq
Upvoted and Signed ;)
Fabio Salvadori
Great initiative. EU is not mature for this, but it's worth a try. The reason of my concern is that I don't remember a single EU legislation that simplified things instead of complicating them, in the last 20 years, but for certain powerful lobbies. And creating a lobby of startups seems pretty difficult if not impossible, given the transitioning nature of a startup. Nonetheless, I've signed the petition. Gotta be optimistic, after all 😁
Omar McPizza πŸ•
Been through the pain, ended up incorporating in the US. Following this initiative from very early on, and its made a lot of great progress really hopeful this gets pushed all the way 🫑
Niels Andriesse
This is sorely needed β€” a critical step in getting EU tech unstuck!