European founders and venture capitalists published an open letter on September 10, 2026, warning that the proposed EU Inc company statute could become “unusable if its central features are weakened” as the European Parliament and Council negotiate the final text. The letter, the latest stage of the EU Inc campaign, arrives with roughly 100 days left before European institutions shut down for the winter recess.
The signatories read like a roster of European venture capital. Accel partner Sonali De Rycker, Sequoia partner Michael Moritz, and Atomico founder Niklas Zennström are among the investors backing the letter, alongside founders behind unicorns including Alan, ElevenLabs, Lovable, Mistral, and Synthesia. Several of those companies are headquartered in the United States — an implicit message to lawmakers that the new statute could eventually reverse that pattern.
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Why the technical details matter to EU Inc’s backers
The letter focuses on provisions its authors describe as points that “may seem like technical details, but […] separate a company form founders use from one they ignore.” Two stand out.
- A single central registry. Supporters argue that a company form requiring registration in multiple national systems would defeat the purpose of an EU-wide statute and recreate the fragmentation it is meant to remove.
- Stock options taxed only on disposal. The letter calls for employees to be taxed when they actually sell their shares, not when options are granted or vest — a structure common in the United States that European founders say is essential for recruiting talent.
This focus on drafting language is not new. In 2024, when the original petition was gathering momentum, Index Ventures partner and EU Inc supporter Martin Mignot told TechCrunch that “the devil is in the details, and that’s going to be where we’re going to be very, very watchful.” That prediction has proved accurate: as with most European lawmaking, national interest groups have entered the debate, including Germany’s notaries, whose association has criticized parts of the European Commission’s proposal.
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What is at stake for European startups
The campaign’s organisers say the statute 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 comparison to the Delaware C Corporation is deliberate: for decades, US incorporation has offered a predictable legal home for companies operating across state lines, and European founders have often chosen it over the patchwork of 27 national company laws.
That structural gap has direct consequences. Founders setting up pan-European operations typically incorporate in one country and then build subsidiaries elsewhere, adding legal cost and complexity at exactly the moment companies need speed. Employee equity is a second pressure point: tax treatment that varies by member state makes cross-border hiring and option grants harder to design, particularly for scaleups competing for senior talent.
Where the negotiations stand
The European Commission’s proposal now sits with the European Parliament and the Council, which must agree on a final text. EU Inc’s promoters have secured endorsements from the European Union’s top authorities, but the open letter signals that support at the political level has not removed the risk of dilution in the drafting stage.
The timing is tight. With the winter recess approaching, the practical window for resolving contested provisions is short, and any delay pushes the file into 2027 — a prospect that carries its own risk, since legislative priorities can shift when institutional attention moves elsewhere.
What the signatories want is straightforward: keep the central registry, keep the deferred taxation of stock options, and preserve a company form that founders would actually use rather than one they would ignore in favour of Delaware. Whether negotiators agree will become clearer in the coming weeks, before the EU’s institutions close for the year.
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