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We've technically speaking got a lot of US startups on Atlas, but we're happy to have more. Today's announcement also includes a number of other improvements w

• mixmastamyk 10y ago
  When might the LLC track be ready? I'm looking forward to that. Thanks.
  • patio11 10y ago
    We ship first and then announce dates because down the other path lies disaster, but LLCs are a great way to incorporate many tech businesses, and Atlas aims to incorporate most tech businesses.
    • rubiquity 10y ago
      No offense but outside of our little HN/YC bubble I think it's the other way around. LLCs seem far more common than Delaware based C Corps for tech companies. For tech startups looking to raise venture capital (a subset of tech companies) a Delaware C Corp is far more common though.
      • valuearb 10y ago
        Aren't LLC's problematic for offering employee equity options? I've done lots of startups, and you want a structure that makes it easy to put together employee pools, easy to raise funding with, and easy to sell/merge. LLCs are easy to setup, but if they create lots of problems down the road it's not a structure you want.
        • brianwawok 10y ago
          LLCs are a swim army knife. You can basically do anything, with way less rules and fees. LLCs can totally offer equity. LLC's are easier to sell than a C corp. Plenty of pluses. If you don't want to get VC funded, you should default to LLC.
          • valuearb 10y ago
            Of course LLCs can offer employees equity. But it's not simple, and it's not easy. And its not just VC funding, you should be wary of LLCs if you think it's likely you will need any kind of investors, as typically investors prefer not want to deal with partnership K1s. If your startup is intended to be profitable quickly, and plans to distribute those profits to the founders, an LLC offers significant tax advantages. If you want to build a big business, it can offer some significant limitations.
            • brianwawok 10y ago
              > And its not just VC funding Sure, I do not know many people getting non-VC funding, but I guess if that exists for you, you can consider it.. > If you want to build a big business, it can offer some significant limitations. Not sure that is really true. There are some HUGE LLCs. Say, Koch or Cargil. https://www.forbes.com/largest-private-companies/list/ https://www.forbes.com/largest-private-companies/list/
              • valuearb 10y ago
                Again, LLC is a great fit if you have a profitable business and want profits can be paid as tax efficiently as possible to you and your other founders. You'll never need investors, you'll be able to borrow money because of your great cash flows, etc. And once in a while one grows to the moon while staying private and never go public. But for most startups, you can't know if you'll need to raise funding. And funding isn't just VCs. It's angels. It's friends and family. It's even crowd-funding now that you can crowdfund equity. And maybe you even get the opportunity to go public and want to be the most public market friendly cap structure. I have a friend whose e-commerce startup just broke over $100k per month in revenue. He's an LLC, but he's starting to realize that he doesn't have enough positive cash flow to pay for the equipment needed to lower his product costs, so now he's thinking of finding investors. And he needs a simple, easy to create equity program with vesting for key employees. And since he has no plans to be profitable soon, he's moving to a C corp. A C-Corp is $500. It's not expensive and is the most flexible foundation to build a startup business on. I'm also biased against LLCs because a problem endemic with LLCs which isn't necessary a fault of LLCs is that it's so easy to just start and go. I see founders who never consider vesting as a requirement. Four founders start an LLC and agree to each getting 25% equity split. Then one quits after a month and the remaining three have a big liability issue if they try to squeeze the quitter out. A C corp usually leads to a professional cap structure where founders are forced to think through these issues a little better.
      • nodesocket 10y ago
        I have a California LLC (sole prop) which is a disregarded entity for tax purposes. LLC is perfect if: a) you don't plan on raising investor capital b) are a single founder, who just wants liability and corporate benefits and protections c) want to easily pass money from the business to personal Do be aware there is a flat $800 a year California LLC fee even if you don't make a cent (which is unfair and anti-small business), but is what it is.
        • enraged_camel 10y ago
          FYI the $800 fee is forfeited during the LLC's first year of operation. BUT it's based on calendar year IIRC, so if you're penny-pinching, it may be worth waiting until January to file the paperwork. That way you get all 12 months' worth!
      • fiatjaf 10y ago
        So it seems Stripe Atlas was set with highly-funded startups in mind. Exactly the kind of startup that is not actually in need of Stripe Atlas.
    • switz 10y ago
      I'd just like to echo the sentiment that it would be fantastic if Atlas supported LLCs. Hope it comes around soon!
    • joshdotsmith 10y ago
      Does this mean you're also hoping to expand into Delaware PBCs, too? Lots of open source projects are considering this approach due to a combination of poor response to open source nonprofits from the IRS and flexibility in figuring out their funding sources. There's only trivial differences to a C Corp in terms of filing. I'd been planning to reach out to Stripe about this when it made sense; I probably should've just emailed you! We're advising folks we're bringing onto our Stripe Connect platform as managed accounts to go use Stripe Atlas where possible, but plenty have voiced support for having B Corps be part of that happy path. Honestly, I might even just pay a lawyer at some point to open up some standardized set of docs for this. Do you hope to have any way for Connect platforms with managed accounts to more directly refer people into Atlas? Having an API for the application process would be amazing.
      • ihinsdale 10y ago
        +1 for Stripe Atlas support for Delaware PBCs
      • billdybas 10y ago
        I would also like to see Atlas expand to include B Corps.
• RikNieu 10y ago
  Do you have some sort of guide or FAQ which can give potential clients a guide as to the possible extra costs involved for internationals, like typical accountants and lawyers fees? I've been interested in Atlas in the past, but the potential financial unknowns can be... intimidating. For instance, how would this compare to opening a company in Hong Kong?
  • patio11 10y ago
    The TCO of a company depends heavily on your situation, which is one reason we find it difficult to have an official answer on that. As a single data point, my personal tax situation involved US LLCs last year, as an American living in Japan. I spent about ~$10k on accountants to file taxes in both countries plus bookkeeping services. That's towards the high end among my friends; that's nowhere near the high end for "total amount spent on accountants in a year." For comparison, Atlas would have introduced me to an accounting firm offering the US side of that for ~20% of what I ended up spending on it. (This is difficult to do an apples-to-apples comparison even in this case, because C Corp vs LLC, but trust me when I say "I was pleasantly surprised where we got the numbers to.") We're working on having an even better offering here for next year. We'll have more to say that closer to tax season 2017.
  • soloadventurer 10y ago
    Where are you from? Have you answered the following questions? a) What is my foreign affiliate reporting requirements? For a Canadian, you must file a T1134 annually. The T1134 for a controlled foreign affiliate (where you exercise control) is very onerous. It is not that bad for a non-controlled foreign affiliate. b) What is my foreign affiliate taxation requirements, in that foreign jurisdiction? This is an answer that must come from Atlas I guess. But for a foreigner owning a US LLC, where the US LLC will be controlled from a country with which the US has a tax treaty, we get into many complexities. c) Will I have an income pickup from active business income from owning a foreign affiliate? For Canada, this is a "no." d) Will I have an income pickup from passive income earned in a foreign affiliate? For Canada, this is a "yes." Canadians should never earn rental income, royalty income, or other such passive income in a US LLC, for example. e) How will I deal with the "place of central management and control?" Many countries deem a corporation to be resident in that country if you habitually exercise management and control from that country. For example, a Canadian that owns a US LLC will result in the following: - US LLC is a tax resident of the US by virtue of incorporation, and must file a tax return to report earnings from the USA (no flow through). As the LLC will be a resident of Canada as well (see below), branch profits tax of 30% may apply (IRS 884). - US LLC is a tax resident of Canada by virtue of being controlled, "mind and management," from Canada by a Canadian, and must therefore file a Canadian corporate tax return. The situation is different for Canadians owning "C" corporations. However, it brings its own complexities and nuances. The reporting requirements are challenging. For those seeking to own a foreign company, research your own reporting and disclosure requirements carefully.
• randomdrake 10y ago
  Hello Patrick, thanks for answering questions. From the looks of these most recent updates, and reading over this blog post, it seems as though Atlas is positioning itself to be an accelerator in its own right. Offering connections, assistance, setup help, guidance, and even access to investors. It seems like Atlas/Stripe is only missing a funding portion and perhaps access to a highly covered "demo day." Are those in the pipeline as well? If not, can you elaborate on what the end goal is here besides simply altruism? Is it just to get new companies in the Stripe pipeline faster?
  • patio11 10y ago
    Stripe's goal is to increase the GDP of the Internet. We're doing Atlas because we think it is instrumentally useful to achieving that. This isn't purely altruistic; we're increasing the GDP of the Internet both because it is a good thing to do and because we intend to capture a sliver of the value unlocked during this economic transformation. In terms of what we'll build into Atlas: absolutely anything that is needed by ambitious technically-oriented companies, with a particular focus on things that we feel we have a comparative advantage in shipping. Sometimes we'll be building things ourselves, sometimes we'll be partnering with folks who have part of the puzzle already.
    • good_vibes 10y ago
      I appreciate how honest your reply was and how pure Atlas is in spirit. I am grateful I am part of the Beta because my personal GDP is too low to afford all the services provided by Atlas. Cheers mate!
• boundlessdreamz 10y ago
  Do you plan to offer incorporation in other business friendly countries - say singapore?
  • ovi256 10y ago
    That would be very interesting because it would remove all risk for the founders of being considered "US persons", which has unexpected and unpleasant consequences such as not being accepted as a client by many non-US banks or financial services. It is not clear to me at the moment if incorporating currently through Atlas makes a foreign, non-US resident founder into a US person, or not.
  • soloadventurer 10y ago
    Have you considered http://startupr.com http://startupr.com? I am not affiliated with them, but are using them currently and they are providing great service.
    • wut42 10y ago
      Startupr looks nice but it doesn't seem to come with a bank account. Last time I've heard it's hard to get a bank account for a company abroad.
      • soloadventurer 10y ago
        KYC rules require you appear in front of the bank officer to open a bank account. If you are going to spend money on opening a company, and are prepared to pay the annual maintenance costs going along with financial statements, tax returns, and other reporting, you should be prepared to travel somewhere and open a bank account. Running a company is NOT cheap.
        • wut42 10y ago
          I know that, yes. But it seems that Atlas somehow don't require you to travel to the US for KYC.
• lettergram 10y ago
  I setup my company through Atlas, and overall I really liked the process. My only pain point was, "why silicon valley bank"? They have high fees, is a pain to set up and manage, and it's basically the opposite of what I think of as a good experience. As some people said in another comment thread, Capital One Spark is great. I'm actually going to switch to them as soon as I have time. I do work for Capital One in my day job (for now), so if you want / need a contact I can provide one. I do realize they don't support foreign teams, but honestly anything is better than SVB.
• taysic 10y ago
  I really love what Atlas is doing, but I too would love to see a LLC option because I never intend on raising capital. My two cents.
• henrikschroder 10y ago
  We're happy Stripe customers, but our Stripe account is based in an EU country, and our entire volume is in USD. For some Stripe policy reason, we can't transfer USD from Stripe to our EU bank account, it's not allowed. You can only transfer USD to US or Canadian bank accounts. We've been in contact with Stripe support over this, and their recommended solution was to use Atlas and setup a US company and bank account, but that's the wrong solution for us. We already have a company which we're happy about, we don't want to become a multi-national entity with all the liability that follows. So, question: Are you actively going to push Atlas as the solution to our problem as well? It seems completely misguided to me, we just want to be able to transfer the USD held in our Stripe account to our EU-based USD bank account, and not do any currency conversions at all.
  • user5994461 10y ago
    You should try Adyen https://www.adyen.com/ https://www.adyen.com/ It's an European company and it's the main competitor to Stripe on our continent. They are actually a bit older and ten times bigger than Stripe, however they don't advertise much. Disclaimer: I am NOT affiliated with any of these providers.
    • no1youknowz 10y ago
      Adyen does not work with startups. I contacted their sales and they slammed the door shut immediately. They were actually quite rude and the tone was like an automated email. Their wording was they only wanted to work with LARGE companies which already processed LARGE volumes. Unless someone from Adyen wants to clarify?
      • cmdkeen 10y ago
        Their pricing page says: "The minimum charge is 1,000 transactions a month, so the transaction cost will be at least €100 a month." Doesn't look startup friendly at all.
        • no1youknowz 10y ago