European founders and VCs push EU to get 'EU Inc' right

Europe could soon have its own equivalent of the Delaware C Corp, but advocates for the new corporate status aren’t easing the pressure on lawmakers. In an open letter released Thursday, a wide range of prominent figures from Europe’s startup scene stressed that the new status shouldn’t be watered down.

The letter is the latest step in the EU Inc campaign, a movement calling for an EU-wide company statute that would let companies incorporate under a common framework and operate across the bloc. Its promoters have secured endorsements from the European Union’s top authorities, but are now warning that the final legislation could become “unusable if its central features are weakened.”

As is typical in European lawmaking, national lobbies have entered the debate, including Germany’s notaries association, which has criticized aspects of the European Commission’s proposal. Negotiations are continuing as the European Parliament and Council work toward a final text, and EU Inc’s promoters are pointing to what’s at stake. With some 100 days left before European institutions break for winter recess, the letter calls on policymakers to preserve the proposal, arguing it has the potential to remove much of the friction and fragmentation that continue to throttle European companies, unlock investment, and spur a new wave of entrepreneurship.

The letter singles out points its signatories say may look like technical details but separate a company form founders actually use from one they ignore — in particular, a single central registry, and taxing employees only when they actually dispose of their stock options. This need to get into the weeds isn’t new: when the original petition was gaining steam in 2024, Index Ventures partner and EU Inc supporter Martin Mignot told TechCrunch that the devil would be in the details, and that supporters would be very watchful there.

EU Inc has also stepped up its namedropping. On the investor side, the new letter carries signatures from VCs including Accel partner Sonali De Rycker, Sequoia partner Michael Moritz, and Atomico founder Niklas Zennström. On the founder side, promoters highlighted endorsements from people behind unicorns including Alan, ElevenLabs, Lovable, Mistral, and Synthesia — some of which are headquartered in the United States, a detail promoters frame as evidence of what could change if EU Inc has its way.

Why it matters

If EU Inc survives the remaining legislative negotiations largely intact, it could make it meaningfully easier for European startups to raise capital and operate across the bloc without re-incorporating elsewhere — the specific outcome campaign leaders are trying to protect from being negotiated away.