Stripe, Wise founders want a 'tech renaissance' in Europe to help region rival Silicon Valley
Founders of some of Europe's largest technology unicorns on Monday backed an open letter calling for a "tech renaissance" fueled by the creation of a single pan-European entity to promote startups and innovation in the bloc.
The list of entrepreneurs backing the proposal includes the likes of Patrick Collison, CEO of payments tech giant Stripe; Taavet Hinrikus, co-founder of money transfer app Wise and venture capital firm Plural, and El?onore Crespo, CEO of French accounting software unicorn Pigment.
"The multitude of countries and cultures in Europe is its unfair advantage. But because of that, our startup scene is fragmented," read the open letter, which was published Monday on a newly created website for the EU Inc initiative.
"Legal and regulatory compliance is a burden, and cross-border collaboration is rare," said the letter, which added that, unlike U.S. venture capitalists, the capital from European investors tends to remain within national borders. This results in "stifled momentum, unrealized potential, and an artificial limit on our startups' chances of success."
Rather than writing new legislation at an EU-wide level to simplify regulations for tech startups, the founders are calling on policymakers to allow for the creation of a new single entity, called EU Inc, under the bloc's 28th regime.
So-called 28th regimes are proposed legal frameworks within the EU that offer an alternative to member states' own national rules instead of replacing them.
For example, the European Company Statute offers an alternative 28th option ? in addition to the existing national laws of the EU's 27 member states ? for setting up of public limited-liability companies in the EU.
The new structure of EU Inc would "standardize investment processes, simplify cross-border operations, and create a unified employee stock options framework" to help European startups scale rapidly and attract more capital, according to a Monday press release.
Other signatories to the open letter include Ilkka Paananen, CEO of Supercell, the Finnish mobile game publisher owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent, and Miki Kuusi, CEO of Wolt, the European food delivery app owned by American online takeout platform DoorDash .
