Delaware
Index Ventures partner: Why Europe needs a Delaware | Fortune
In 1913, a tiny American state made a calculated bet that would reshape the global economy.
When New Jersey suddenly came down hard on business, neighbouring Delaware decided to rewrite its rulebook to scoop up companies fleeing the state. It created a simple registration system, stripped away corporate bureaucracy, and invited the nation’s companies to call it home. Hoping to attract steam engines and gunpowder manufacturers, Delaware’s leaders could scarcely have imagined that, a century later, the ‘Delaware Inc’ model would serve as the foundation for smartphones, search engines and electric cars. In other words, it would become the corporate vehicle that underpinned the world’s most valuable and transformative businesses.
Europe needs its own Delaware. While the continent has shown itself more than capable of producing extraordinary entrepreneurs and breakout global companies like Adyen, Spotify and Revolut, its founders must still overcome huge barriers to scaling compared with the U.S. The numbers tell a sobering story, as MIT’s principal research scientist Andrew McAfee has pointed out. Publicly traded companies started from scratch in Europe in the past 50 years are collectively valued at around $420 billion, while their U.S. counterparts approach $30 trillion – almost 70 times as much. All six U.S. companies with a market cap over $1 trillion have been set up in the past half century; not a single EU equivalent has.
This chasm exposes the fragmentation that’s holding back European innovation. A startup with a Delaware Inc. can raise capital and expand from coast to coast across the US without breaking its stride. Investors know the structure. Deals and hiring happen fast, and the company’s momentum compounds. Meanwhile, a founder scaling across Europe must incorporate separate entities in each country, untangle regulatory and employment codes in multiple languages and markets, and explain to engineers in Munich why their stock options are treated differently to their colleagues’ in Madrid.
The European single market doesn’t extend to startups
The reality is that when it comes to startups, there is no European single market, only 27 different countries. The consequences are stark: stifled momentum, unrealized potential, and an artificial limit on startups’ chances of success. A year ago, Mario Draghi, former Italian Prime Minister and President of the European Central Bank, published a landmark report that sounded the alarm on EU competitiveness and called for an additional €800 billion per year in investment. Draghi noted that Europe captures just 5% of global venture capital funds, while the US commands 52%. This means VC investment in the EU is just 0.05% of GDP, nearly six times lower than in the US at 0.32%. More than 60% of European companies cite regulation as an obstacle to investment, and most see it as their biggest challenge overall.
This is a crisis for Europe unfolding in real time. The continent that invented and spun out the internet from its first-class research institutions now risks standing by as US founders scale with ease.
But there’s a way forward and close the gap. Momentum is building behind the idea of ‘EU–INC’ – not a carbon copy of the Delaware model, but a fresh, pan-European corporate entity that will set a new global standard for business formation. If EU Inc is realized, it will allow founders to launch, raise capital, hire and grow seamlessly across Europe. A founder in Stockholm could incorporate in minutes, access standardized investment documents recognized from Berlin to Barcelona, implement EU-wide employee stock options, and scale across 450 million consumers.
The grassroots movement behind EU–INC has garnered over 18,000 signatories and support from Europe’s most successful entrepreneurs and investors, including leaders from Mistral, DeepMind, Stripe, Supercell, Index Ventures and Y Combinator. The major EU decisionmaking institutions have expressed approval, and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has committed to reform.
The bad news is that there are already murmurs in Brussels about piecemeal, incremental measures – harmonizing certain national laws, creating yet another framework for EU member states to fuss over and interpret. This is folly. The problem of fragmentation must be fixed at the heart of Europe. Half measures will not solve founders’ problems, nor will they create the competitive advantage that Europe so desperately needs.
Delaware’s 1913 gamble helped spark a century of American dynamism. Creating an EU–INC could make Europe the undisputed seedbed of innovation – the best place in the world to found, fund and scale a company. Europe doesn’t need another directive or committee. It needs its Delaware, and it needs it now.
More information is available at eu-inc.org.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
Pennrose and JPMorganChase help neighborhoods – and residents – thrive.
Finding an affordable place to live continues to be a challenge for many as widespread housing shortages persist across the U.S. Rising home prices and high interest rates have made homeownership inaccessible for a large portion of the population. Meanwhile, as rental demand increases, the number of renters facing affordability challenges is also on the rise.
The State of the Nation’s Housing 2025 by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies reveals that cost burdens for renters reached another record high in 2023. Similarly, the JPMorganChase Institute reports that renter affordability is declining and forcing people to devote more of their take-home pay to housing costs. There is a growing need for affordable housing across the U.S., and that rings true here in Wilmington.
To close that gap, it’s essential that all Wilmington residents share in its growth with housing options that accommodate a range of needs and budgets. For the Pennrose real estate firm, this meant delivering a concrete solution to the local community, resulting in housing for individuals and families who otherwise might not have been able to live in the area.
Reinvesting in Wilmington’s Riverside
In Wilmington, the Riverside redevelopment initiative is focused on neighborhood stability at a scale that can be felt across generations – bringing housing, education and community resources together so families can remain rooted and move forward. Imani Village, developed by Pennrose in partnership with the Wilmington Housing Authority and nonprofit community organization REACH Riverside and constructed with support from JPMorganChase, is part of this broader effort, which is expected to create more than 600 high-quality, mixed-income homes while also enhancing and expanding EastSide Charter School and Kingswood Community Center to help establish a “cradle to college/career readiness education pipeline.”
By tying new housing to strengthened local institutions, the redevelopment aims to reduce the pressure that forces families to relocate and instead keep children closer to school, neighbors closer to one another and residents connected to the services that help them thrive. In practical terms, Imani Village represents not just additional homes, but a commitment to building a neighborhood where opportunity is easier to access and easier to keep.
“We’re proud of the far-reaching impact this project will have. It reflects Pennrose’s mission to uplift our communities and expand the supply of high-quality, affordable homes,” said Brett Macleod, Community Development Banking, J.P. Morgan. “Every additional housing unit matters – and increasing the number that are affordable is critical.”
A broader commitment to Wilmington’s future
While Imani Village is foundational, the vibrancy of a community depends on much more. In Delaware, the firm provides banking services to 215,000 customers and works across sectors to expand economic opportunity. Over the last five years, JPMorganChase has invested more than $25 million in local nonprofit organizations, supported 25,000 small business clients and delivered financial health education to thousands of residents to broaden access to banking, financial health resources, homeownership and other wealth-building tools.
“As we work with local stakeholders to expand housing options, JPMorganChase’s goal is to create inclusive economic opportunity for all,” said Don Mell, Location Management, Americas East Region Lead and member of the Delaware & Philadelphia Market Leadership Team at JPMorganChase. “When our communities thrive, we all thrive.”
Learn more about affordable housing and community development at jpmorgan.com/commercial-real-estate.
Read more from Spotlight Delaware
DNREC opened the new Delaware Environmental Laboratory near Smyrna today with a ceremonial ribbon cutting for a state-of-the-art facility that features scientific analysis of emerging contaminants such as PFAS, water quality testing and early detection in Delaware of human and animal diseases. DNREC Secretary Greg Patterson led the cutting. Celebrants, left to right, were: DNREC Deputy Secretary Dayna Cobb, former DNREC Secretary Shawn Garvin, Sec. Patterson, Delaware Environmental Lab Director Ashley Kunder, former DNREC Secretary Christophe Tulou, former DNREC Secretary David Small, State Senator Stephanie Hansen, US EPA Region 3 Deputy Administrator Catherine Libertz, State Sen. Kyra Hoffner, Kate Rohrer representing US Senator Chris Coons, and John Gentile, representing Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester. /Delaware DNREC photo
The Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control’s Delaware Environmental Laboratory has opened near Smyrna, providing a state-of-the-art facility to test water quality, chemical contaminants including per- and poly fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and conduct molecular and microbiology. DNREC Secretary Greg Patterson was joined today for a ceremonial ribbon cutting by representatives of the state’s congressional delegation, state legislators, former DNREC cabinet secretaries and organizations that depend on the environmental lab for scientific analysis.
The new lab replaces a facility that has operated since 1983 in a converted 19th-century cannery that serves as DNREC’s headquarters building in Dover. The spacious new lab building will house up to 24 scientific, technical and support staff. With its strategic location adjacent the state Department of Health and Social Services Public Health lab, the Delaware Environmental Laboratory will perform testing in support of environmental and public health programs focused on detection of human and animal diseases, as well as environmental emergency response, education and training. The new facility is the third environmental lab in the state’s history.
Construction of the Delaware Environmental Laboratory was supported by a combined $29.7 million from the American Rescue Plan Act – funded by President Joe Biden and Congress – and state funds.
“DNREC’s lab has done amazing work in the last 40 years but did so in spaces that looked like a middle school science classroom, so it definitely needed an upgrade,” DNREC Secretary Patterson said. “The new modern, environmental lab will provide optimum conditions for the skilled and dedicated staff DNREC depends on to help protect the health and safety of Delawareans and our environment, with greater capabilities for addressing environmental and public health challenges of today and into the future.”
Beyond the lab’s expanded capabilities for analytical testing and applying scientific expertise, the proximity between the new DNREC laboratory and the Division of Public Health lab will enable the state to benefit from support between technical experts, materials and supplies when critical situations arise, such as preventing disease outbreaks on coastal beaches or helping mitigate accidental industrial releases of toxic substances or the impacts of pollutants – with both labs focused on underserved or at-risk communities throughout the state.
DNREC expects the new facility to encourage continuing innovation from the various specialized sections of the lab in meeting global environmental and public health challenges of the times, with PFAS and other contaminants of emerging concern among the priorities. The new Delaware Environmental Laboratory continues to increase DNREC’s analytical testing capability. The lab has established new testing capabilities for PFAS, emerging contaminants and other specialized testing, such as environmental DNA. Beyond meeting DNREC’s analysis needs, the Delaware Environmental Lab also serves organizations such as the Center for the Inland Bays, the Delaware River Basin Commission, the U.S. Geological Survey, Delaware Geological Survey and the University of Delaware.
“The opening of our new environmental laboratory represents a significant investment by the state,” said Delaware Environmental Laboratory Director Ashley Kunder. “This strengthens our ability to provide high-quality scientific data that state agencies and policymakers rely upon to make informed decisions and protect our natural resources. Most importantly, this laboratory reflects our commitment to the citizens of Delaware. This new facility supports our talented group of scientists and technical professionals, thus strengthens our ability to deliver timely, accurate, and defensible data. We are excited to begin this new chapter and look forward to meeting our mission of protecting public health and the environment.”
About DNREC
The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control protects and manages the state’s natural resources, protects public health, provides outdoor recreational opportunities and educates Delawareans about the environment. The DNREC Division of Water manages and protects Delaware’s water resources. For more information, visit the website and connect with @DelawareDNREC on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, X or LinkedIn.
Media Contact: Nikki Lavoie, nikki.lavoie@delaware.gov; Michael Globetti, michael.globetti@delaware.gov
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