Clerky and Mercury are removing EIN stress for non-US founders

We're excited to announce an enhancement to our partnership with Mercury (plus a limited-time offer) that will significantly reduce stress for non-US startup founders — and even some US founders!

If you're a new founder and someone agrees to invest in your startup, you may need to quickly set up a new corporation and open a bank account. Naturally, you want to close the investment as soon as possible.  Or maybe you're in a little less of a rush but still need to accept payments or pay employees soon.

Clerky has always made it easy to set up a corporation so you can get the first step done quickly.  We've also long partnered with Mercury and others to make that second step, opening a bank account¹, as easy as possible.  Trusted by more than 100,000 companies, Mercury lays the groundwork for ambitious companies to operate at their highest level with banking and credit cards engineered for the startup journey. With an intelligent banking platform powering their operations, founders and finance teams can efficiently store, manage, and move their funds while driving smarter business decisions. And with access to notable investors, operators, founders, and resources, startups can better navigate the obstacles of company building.

But sometimes startups encounter a roadblock when trying to take this second step. In order to open a US bank account, you generally need to get an EIN from the IRS.  If you have a US taxpayer ID, you can probably get an EIN online in just a few minutes.  But if you don't have a US taxpayer ID, you'll need to apply by fax.  Sometimes you'll need to apply by fax even if you do have a US taxpayer ID.  The problem is that the IRS can take months to assign EINs via fax, which means it could take months to open a bank account.  That's bad news if you have an investor waiting.

To fix this, we're teaming up with Mercury so you can open a Mercury account while waiting for the IRS to assign your EIN.  Clerky startups can now start applying to Mercury through Clerky right after applying for an EIN!  This means you can potentially start banking within days of incorporating.  No more stressing about when the IRS is going to get back to you. You can now start closing investors, accepting payments, and hiring people in days, not weeks or months.

One more thing — for a limited time, Mercury is helping cover a portion of incorporation costs by offering $1,000 in cash to Clerky startups that open accounts and meet a minimum balance requirement!² This offer won't last forever, so if you're interested, get started today on Clerky.^‍