The Dutch Republic, formed when the northern provinces renounced Habsburg rule in 1581, became a federation of self-governing towns dominated by a merchant elite. In 1602 the States-General chartered the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC), the world's first joint-stock company with permanent capital and powers normally reserved to states, including the right to wage war, sign treaties, build forts and govern territory. The VOC and its Atlantic counterpart, the WIC, founded fortified trading towns from Batavia to New Amsterdam, laid out on grids with canals modelled on Dutch practice. Commercial gain, rather than crown or church, drove this corporate colonialism.
The VOC pioneered the corporation as a colonising and city-founding power, exporting a canal-and-grid urban template and binding distant ports into a capital-driven global network.