East India Company

English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region. It eventually came to control large parts of the Indian subcontinent. At its peak, the company was the largest corporation in the world by various measures and had its own armed forces in the form of the company’s three presidency armies, totalling about 260,000 soldiers, twice the size of the British army at the time. Accounted for c. 50% of world’s trade in 1770s and began British imperial presence in India. Came to suffer financial difficulties.