Incorporation Advice

I have been working on a startup idea with some former colleagues who live in the US. I have also been made redundant from my job here in Ireland. We want to move the startup idea forward by formalising a business around it. I will be seeking support through the Back to Work Enterprise Allowance. If approved, I will receive a weekly allowance from the state and I can avail of other programmes, grants and mentoring programs, which is very valuable to me.

I am completely new to setting up a business here - so I need to be sure that I am doing this correctly and with the best interests of my partners and the business as a priority. The "offshore" aspects of the arrangement make it a little bewildering. I don't want to seek support at home without knowing what I should be looking for and why. So what I need to know is how best to incorporate the arrangements we share today to facilitate my interests here....whilst not jeopardising my partner's interests in the US.. but still remaining a single "entity" for us all. Obviously, this has required significant investment to get to where we are and it will take further significant investment to get to market. Therefore, we would like to avail of as much support as possible to make it happen.

In terms of our maturity as a startup, we have a prototype product developed & hosted in the US under a "single member LLC" owned by my one of my partners. Our next steps will be to seek funding (this could be from the US or EU) and to hopefully land the first of a million customers! So this is now getting quite "real" for us all. We are all willing to do what is most sensible to make this successful.

Does anybody have any advice as to how bet to approach this from either / both sides of the pond? Should we sub-divide the company's interests? Should we incorporate separately? What should our objectives be to maximise our potential across both jurisdictions? Are there good sites or company's that can give us the best advice?

Thanks in advance for your time.

If you want to keep life simple for yourself either be a sole trader or an Irish company limited by shares. These latter type of companies can be incorporated for €200 upwards. If you start using US LLCs you will get nothing but confusion - these would be regarded as exotic here and would be hard to use. For example opening a bank account for US LLC in Ireland would be such hassle you have no idea. Additionally each State has their own version of an LLC - some are tax transparent in Ireland and others are opaque. If these words mean nothing to you it shows the complexity.

You need good legal advice on setting up the correct structure - for example you may want to use an Irish trading company and the LLC would have a shareholding in it. Get it right from the start - unwinding such things in the event of a second tranche of investment is messy and can be costly.

I would also find out if you can get the Back to Work Enterprise Allowance and be employed (as you would with a company) at the same time. This allowance may only be available if you are a sole trader. I'm not that familiar with this allowance so just mentioning it.

Sincere thanks for your advice Dublin66. At least I know I wasn't overcomplicating things now!

For what its worth, according to InTreo's own brochureware, the Back to Work Enterprise Allowance does accommodate Limited companies. I will know for certain next week and I will post back. As this is a critical issue for me now, do you know where I might get solid legal advice on this subject? It doesn't seem like the type of thing that formation agents would handle routinely.

I'd suggest a good corporate firm that specialises in corporate or business law or has a specialist in this area. Be careful of small legal practices who claim to be specialists in everything - top 10 law firms would be your starting point but I think you may find the fees there a bit high. Nothing wrong with a small firm provided they have the specialist expertise.