New feature | Introducing Cayman exempted companies on Clara!

The Clara team has some very exciting news! Startup founders can now create Cayman companies on the Clara platform, making it faster, easier and cheaper to form an investor-friendly topco for your startup

Create Cayman Islands companies online

Setting up a company in the Cayman Islands is quick, cost-effective, attractive to foreign investors and easy for founders to maintain. Creating an offshore company for your startup might seem daunting if you don’t know where to start, which is where Clara comes in.

The entire process has been designed with busy founders in mind and is managed completely online, removing the need for paperwork and endless hours of legal reading! When you form a Cayman Islands exempted company on Clara, you’ll be guided through the process step-by-step without any hard-to-understand legal jargon.

Easy profile management on Clara

We’ll keep you updated every step of the way showing you the status in your Clara profile, and when everything is done, you’ll be able to manage all your documents in Clara’s secure data room and visualise your corporate structure straight away using the stakeholder map.

Clara will also automatically create the first cap table of your newly-formed company – meaning that everything can be managed from one central platform. Saving huge amounts of time and effort on business admin. Plus, you can create a Share Incentive Plan and allocate options to your team straight away, and when you’re ready you can issue convertibles like SAFEs and Convertible Loan Notes and share your profile with potential investors.

Form a Cayman Islands company from anywhere

As a startup ourselves we have first-hand experience of the challenges that founders face. Our Cayman Islands company formation process has been designed from start to finish to save time, money and effort. Founders can use Clara to create the company remotely, regardless of their location. Whether you’re based in Dubai, Saudi Arabia, the US, the UK or anywhere else – Clara’s got you covered!

Why form a company in the Cayman Islands?​

The Cayman Islands is a well-known and widely trusted jurisdiction for investors. It’s an ideal jurisdiction to set up a company as your topco . Having a topco in an investor-friendly jurisdiction like the Cayman Islands allows founders to get into accelerator programmes, raise funds easily, issue convertibles like SAFEs and generally protect their rights and those of their investors.

What is a Cayman Islands exempted Company?​

When you create your company on Clara, you will be creating what is called an ”exempted company”. This is the most common form of offshore company in the Cayman Islands and is used:

• to hold assets including intellectual property and real estate,
• for financing and raising capital,
• for the securitisation of loans,
• for joint ventures and risk sharing, and
• for asset transfers.

Other benefits generally in the Cayman Islands include:

• Share ownership – 100% of shares can be owned by non-residents
• Privacy – records of shareholders and directors are private
• No taxation – the Cayman Islands does not impose tax on the company or its shareholders
• Single shareholder and director – A Cayman Islands exempted company can be set up with one director and shareholder who can be the same person
• No required meetings or audits – There are no requirements to hold meetings or to conduct audits for accounting purposes
• Language – English is the official language

An exempted company can’t trade in the Cayman Islands with any person, firm or corporation unless your exempted company holds a specific licence to carry out its business in the Cayman Islands (amongst a few other restrictions related to domestic operations). So, this company form is better suited for holding shares in other companies outside of the Cayman Islands (this is the use case founders need).

What other types of companies can Clara help you create?

In addition to creating exempted companies in the Cayman Islands, Clara can help founders create companies in ADGM (holding companies and tech licence companies) and DIFC (prescribed companies and tech licence companies).