Broad startup coalition calls for introduction of EU Inc.

The reports and analyses are alarming when it comes to Europe’s competitiveness in terms of innovation – this was recently shown by the sensational Draghi report. Now many are concerned with improving the situation in the EU, especially for founders, so that more internationally competitive tech companies can thrive soon and quickly.

One starting point: a new corporate legal form specifically for startups. A broad coalition of representatives of the sector – founders, investors, and many more – are now jointly calling on the new EU Commission to create an “EU Inc.” The aim is for this new legal form for startups to actually be implemented within the next five years. This website has also gone live to gather supporters.

“Building on unique European strengths”

“A standardized pan-European ‘EU Inc’ corporate structure is essential for European start-ups,” says an online petition that goes live on Monday. “It’s not about imitating Silicon Valley. It’s about building on our unique European strengths: our diversity, our decentralized talent pool, and our unique start-up hubs.” This is expected to lead to faster scaling, more breakthrough successes, and an inflow of global capital; Europe would become “the best place to build a groundbreaking company.”

“In the startup world, momentum is everything. Anything that slows you down doesn’t just slow you down – it kills you by preventing you from reaching escape velocity. Despite the world-class talent, global ambition, and unique strengths of the European startup ecosystem, it’s still absurdly hard to build something here. EU Inc. is about removing these artificial constraints and giving our startups the opportunity to truly accelerate,” said  Andreas Klinger (Prototype Capital, ex-CTO of Product Hunt).

But what exactly should this EU Inc. be able to do? The following points are suggested:

• Standardization of investment processes to enable genuine pan-European investments.
• Introduction of a uniform stock option program for employees in order to spread the success of startups more widely.
• Simplification of cross-border transactions such as employment and capital movements.
• Complete digitalization of the founding process so that it only takes a few hours – all in English and online.

Tech giants call for more uniform EU regulation for AI

Mario Draghi proposes the “Innovative European Company”

As reported, such an idea has already fallen on fertile ground in high politics. For example, former ECB chief Mario Draghi recently proposed the “Innovative European Company” (IEC) in his much-noticed report. This is intended to provide innovative startups with harmonized legal provisions in the areas of corporate law and insolvency as well as in important aspects of labor law and taxation.

Now it is basically up to the new EU Commission whether this will be implemented – the proposals are already on the table. Incidentally, the Commission is to get its own Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation, Ekaterina Zaharieva from Bulgaria.

Here is an excerpt from the supporters of the petition for EU Inc.: