EU-Inc - Let's create a pan-european startup entity

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!

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.👍 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.

Love this! Not European, but anything to streamline bureaucracy for new businesses is great for the whole world 👏👏👏

I absolutely love this initiative. Thank you very much for doing this. I truly hope that we improve how Europe is doing right now.

This is sorely needed — a critical step in getting EU tech unstuck!

Would love to see this come through! One of the (few) reasons why it is even painful to think about EU based entrepreneurship.

I'm a US citizen who has been living in Spain for several years, and now own a Spanish corporation. EU Inc would be absolutely amazing. Even seemingly simple things like an Intra-Community VAT number has been a huge hassle to get. I love Spain and Europe, but there's a few things that the US does better, and corp bureaucracy is one. I have owned several businesses in the US, and the amount of yearly bureaucracy to maintain a Spanish corporation is extraordinarily high comparatively speaking.

Great design and we really need this in Europe! Thanks for the ones working on this ;)

As a European myself, this would be great! Hope it goes through till the end

Congrats, Andreas! You are doing something great, and I was impressed by your motivation. All the best to EU-Inc!