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Native name |
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Company type | |
Industry | Proto-conglomerate |
Predecessor | Voorcompagnieën/Pre-companies (1594–1602)[b] |
Founded | 20 March 1602[1] by a government-directed consolidation of the voorcompagnieën/pre-companies | ,
Founder | Johan van Oldenbarnevelt and the States-General |
Defunct | 31 December 1799 |
Fate | Dissolved and nationalised as Dutch East Indies |
Headquarters |
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Area served |
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Key people |
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Products | Spices, silk, porcelain, metals, livestock, tea, grain, rice, soybeans, sugarcane, wine, coffee |
The Dutch East India Company (Old Dutch: Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie), or VOC, started in 1602, when the Netherlands gave a group of small trading companies a 21-year monopoly to trade in Asia. It was the first multinational corporation in the world and the first company to issue stock.[2] The VOC had the power to start wars, make treaties, make its own money and start new colonies.[3]
It was an important company for almost 200 years, but it became bankrupt in 1800.[4] The VOC's colonies became the Dutch East Indies, which later became Indonesia.
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