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EU–INC – A new pan-European legal entity

eu-inc.org

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Re: EU–INC – A new pan-European legal entity

#161

Post by gyanchawdhary »

petcat wrote: post #83

I always heard that the issue with startup investment in Europe was the general lack of capital investors willing to take Hail Mary risks on founders with a wild idea and maybe little experience. The market is far too risk-averse for a grassroots early-stage startup scene. How would this organization address that fundamental psychological block?

UK founder here in cybersecurity. I’ve bootstrapped and exited twice.

For my third venture, I cold emailed a US VC (from their about us page) that specializes in cyber. Within a month I had a term sheet. I didn’t take it because it was contingent on relocating to the US or adding a US based cofounder/senior person ... but they were super proactive, introduced me to senior cyber operators, getting design partners and were clearly willing to underwrite founder risk early.

In contrast, simply changing my LinkedIn status to “stealth” triggered 15+ inbound messages from EU focused investors .. mostly low effort outreach, deal scouts .. It got to the point where I had a template reply along the lines of: “I’m not looking for VC coaching or therapy sessions — I just need fire and forget capital. If that works, happy to talk.” Every single one either went silent or declined.

In my experience, many European investors index heavily on hierarchy, control, validation, and internal consensus and tend to operate from a very rigid playbook of what a “proper” startup is supposed to look like .. whatever "proper" means.

Re: EU–INC – A new pan-European legal entity

#162

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

veltas wrote: post #157
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, except for the bits of Europe which chose not to be part of the main part of Europe. That's how it works. And by "it" we mean both "free choice to be part of the union or not" and "legal jurisdictions".

I don't think you know how continents work. It's a bit like saying Canada isn't "North American".

It is pretty common, when discussing matters of law and business - not geography, to read "Europe" as "the union of Europe" and not "the continent of Europe".

Much like "an American firm" doesn't mean Canadian or Brazilian.

See comment above:

> Its obviously EU

I know how continents work. I don't think you know when contextual usages of language work.

Re: EU–INC – A new pan-European legal entity

#163

Post by Gud »

techpression wrote: post #18
cjs_ac wrote: post #3

> The ultimate aim is to create a new truly European company structure. We call it EU Inc., with a single and simple set of rules that will apply seamlessly all over our Union. So that business can operate across Member States much more easily. Our entrepreneurs, the innovative companies, will be able to register a company in any Member State within 48 hours – fully online. They will enjoy the same capital regime all…

As a Swede the third one is terrifying, unifying the energy market has been catastrophic for us, both price and environment wise. The latest is added taxes due to choke points designed by EU from the first place..

As a Swede(working in the energy sector no less), Sweden has only themselves to blame for their catastrophic decisions, like killing a world leading nuclear industry. Don’t blame Germany for Swedens incredibly stupid decision to shut down functioning nuclear reactors prematurely.

Re: EU–INC – A new pan-European legal entity

#164

Post by mrtksn »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #137
mrtksn wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the issue. If your business is dependent on slave labor and offloading your externalities on the society to make a profit it simply means your business should not exist. Its evident that labor cost and taxes are not excessive in EU by the reality of existence of plenty of businesses in a healthy society. What doesn't exist in EU is the "tech" business, and the tech doesn't have margins too slim to employ p…

> If your business is dependent on slave labor There is no such thing as slave labor in the tech sector. Some countries offer a lower barrier to entry than others. The EU has a very high barrier to entry when it comes to taxation. You can believe what you want, but I think every country's goal is to reduce taxation as much as possible for companies and for people. Unfortunately, the current in the EU is to keep raisi…

EU doesn't actually have power to tax people, each government does its own taxation. They come up with agreements like minimum tax levels to prevent things like pretending to be in Ireland to avoid taxes in France but that's about it.

Most of the Europeans trust the government more that they trust the businesses and demand some services to be provided by the government and they all collect taxes accordingly. Some countries like Bulgaria have relatively small governments and do %10 flat tax for companies and individuals and other countries like France or Germany provide robust government services and safety net and do much higher taxation.

Re: EU–INC – A new pan-European legal entity

#165

Post by embedding-shape »

closewith wrote: post #95
petcat wrote: post #83

I always heard that the issue with startup investment in Europe was the general lack of capital investors willing to take Hail Mary risks on founders with a wild idea and maybe little experience. The market is far too risk-averse for a grassroots early-stage startup scene. How would this organization address that fundamental psychological block?

I think a big issue is that Europeans who want to invest in early stage VC do so in the States, because everything is geared towards entrepreneurial success there. Changing the business environment across the EU is necessary but definitely not sufficient to kick start the VC-backed startup scene in the EU.

> big issue is that Europeans who want to invest in early stage VC do so in the States

I haven't seen that personally, most of the VCs I've worked with here in Europe who live here in Europe, invest in European companies. Most of them invest in companies in the same country they live in, because it's a bit of a hassle to invest in companies from other countries currently (hoping that EU-INC makes that easier), but none of them regularly invest in US companies.

Re: EU–INC – A new pan-European legal entity

#166

Post by atmosx »

IMO this is half-measures. You wanna a strong EU? Merge the salaries and living standards from the north the south and west to east. Germans workers shouldn't blackmailed by auto-motive companies leaving for Poland unless they accept smaller salaries and vice-versa polish workers shouldn't emigrate to Germany to find a decent salary, pension, etc.

Flat out these social differences and you'll have the social support you need to fight and/or collaborate as equal with everyone else. It's very simple.

ps. I'm not saying everybody should stay "put". But ppl shouldn't be migrating within the EU for these reasons. That was the initial goal anyway, then they started celebrating things that no one in the EU cares about as if it's something that matters (i.e. Apple vs EU dispute over the charger...)

Re: EU–INC – A new pan-European legal entity

#167

Post by Swenrekcah »

mono442 wrote: post #54
embedding-shape wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decent compromise to what? The group who want to pollute the world because it's cheaper? Doesn't sound like a compromise many of us would want.

Countries outside European Union don't care about global warming anyway. It's a futile policy.

You might be interested to learn that both of those statements are very wrong.

Re: EU–INC – A new pan-European legal entity

#168

Post by academia_hack »

It's inordinately difficult and expensive to start an LLC or SA in some EU countries. It's even difficult and expensive to _stop_ an LLC and dissolve it. Huge amount of risk and cost on founders and a huge distraction from running a business.

I think that EU-Inc _could_ be an improvement, but it needs to avoid the committee laundry list of ideas/requirements/form fields that plagues the EU startup ecosystem. My worry is that the end result will require notarized declarations of honour, financial plans stretching decades into the future, 30 page business plan documents, reams of corporate governance documents, and tons of other nonsense to protect against the perceived risk that someone who failed at starting a business once fails a second time.

There needs to be UX requirements on the process from day one against which the end result is judged. (E.g. "a company should be able to register in x days", "a complete application should be no longer than y pages", "application costs should be less than z euros").

Re: EU–INC – A new pan-European legal entity

#169

Post by Kim_Bruning »

Yes please! I tripped over this recently. It's a bigger deal than it might seem.

You'd be surprised at some of the weird things that can happen in the current systems in the EU if you try to do business across borders.

Like: your company suddenly automatically becoming deregistered, or you might get a sudden huge tax bill, or you might even inadvertently get charged with fraud.

Hasn't happened so far knock on wood, but it's a lot more work to stay on the light side than you'd really like.

This is all because the national systems still sort of assume that you'll live and work and stay inside one EU country. You end up constantly fitting square administrative pegs into regulatory round holes.

A lot of the EU's promise is actually theoretical without a proper pan european legal entity.

Re: EU–INC – A new pan-European legal entity

#170

Post by pjc50 »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #137
mrtksn wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the issue. If your business is dependent on slave labor and offloading your externalities on the society to make a profit it simply means your business should not exist. Its evident that labor cost and taxes are not excessive in EU by the reality of existence of plenty of businesses in a healthy society. What doesn't exist in EU is the "tech" business, and the tech doesn't have margins too slim to employ p…

> If your business is dependent on slave labor There is no such thing as slave labor in the tech sector. Some countries offer a lower barrier to entry than others. The EU has a very high barrier to entry when it comes to taxation. You can believe what you want, but I think every country's goal is to reduce taxation as much as possible for companies and for people. Unfortunately, the current in the EU is to keep raisi…

The assumption that a company can pay US tax rates while selling into the EU is perhaps one that should be questioned, like the ability to pay Chinese tax rates while selling into the US.

(see Apple Ireland)

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