A chartered company is an association formed by investors or shareholders for the purpose of trade, exploration, and colonization.
The East India Company evolved from a small enterprise run by a group of City of London merchants, which in 1600 had been granted a royal charter conferring the monopoly of English trade in the whole of Asia and the Pacific.
The company received a Royal Charter from Queen Elizabeth I on 31 December 1600, coming relatively late to trade in the Indies.
The East India Company was established in 1600 as a joint-stock company with a monopoly of the trade to and from the East Indies. Its political achievements form a large part of the history of the British Empire, and its economic power was enormous, contributing substantially to the national wealth and causing the company to be the centre of most of the economic controversies of the 17th century. The company ended up seizing control over large parts of the Indian subcontinent, colonized parts of Southeast Asia, and colonized Hong Kong after a war with China.
By 1803, at the height of its rule in India, the British East India company had a private army of about 260,000—twice the size of the British Army, with Indian revenues of £13,464,561, and expenses of £14,017,473. The company eventually came to rule large areas of India with its private armies, exercising military power and assuming administrative functions. Company rule in India effectively began in 1757 and lasted until 1858, when, following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Government of India Act 1858 led to the British Crown's assuming direct control of the Indian subcontinent in the form of the new British Raj.
