If you're just starting out, the worst decision you can make is to incorporate as a C-corp. An LLC makes vastly more sense, even for the tiny proportion of companies that want VC funding (and specifically institutional funding - funding from other sources would not matter as much - I'll explain why below). Stripe Atlas really ought to make the default an LLC.

The two major reasons why:

1. When you're a C-corp, you pay taxes twice. Once at the corporate level, and once at the individual level. This matters both for ongoing income but also for any liquidation event - as most liquidation events are asset, not stock, sales, you're getting taxed twice here too.

2. You can go from LLC -> C-corp easily but not the reverse. Why would you make the decision before you have to? Start as an LLC. In the very unlikely event you are taking institutional funding you can convert; in most cases, you'll happily stay as an LLC and keep the extra tax dollars you'd be giving the government.

Finally - all this business that VCs prefer to invest in Delaware C corps because of the legal knowledge there is - sorry - bullshit. They do it because they have to invest in taxed entities, because they themselves are partnerships so their interest in any flow-through entity will flow up to their investors, some of which are non-profits. Non-profits, like pensions, risk losing their non-profit status if they have unrelated business taxable income. There is a solution here, which is to have a special purpose blocker corp that sits in between the VC partnership and the LLC. This is done all the time in private equity but not in VC and there is no principled reason why not.

So there you have it. Don't do Stripe Atlas because you're forcing yourself to make a decision you don't need to make right now, that's irreversible, and that may end up costing you a lot of money.

IANAL, but I am a Wharton MBA