Background reading: Should I incorporate in my home state or in Delaware?

Why has English become a uniform standard for business language around much of the world? Because without a common language, it can be incredibly inefficient for companies doing international business to communicate. 

In the United States, Delaware has evolved to become a kind of national standard for corporate law. Having a standard used by everyone around the country streamlines deal-making, and reduces legal fees. 

A large majority of angel and VC-backed tech startups in the U.S. are incorporated in Delaware, regardless of their physical geographic location. That’s why serious startup lawyers in any U.S. state are very familiar with Delaware corporate law. 

There are of course other reasons why Delaware is preferred by so many companies and investors, much of which are explained in the above-linked post. But the main point for founders to understand is that scaling Boston startups have good reasons for starting out in Delaware.

Delaware can save you money long-term.

Given how much of the startup ecosystem is built on Delaware corporation law, all serious startup lawyers have large sets of form documents and processes built around Delaware law. Taking advantage of those forms and processes will save you legal fees.

Both in the short term and long-term, Boston founders intending to build companies looking to scale faster than a typical small business should strongly consider Delaware.

Sidenote: See also: Not Building a Unicorn for a discussion on how, while being a “startup” means going after some amount of scale, it doesn’t have to mean a Silicon Valley-style hyper growth trajectory.