Danish East India Company

The first Danish East India Company was chartered in 1616 by King Christian IV of Denmark-Norway to pursue trade with India, and established its main base at the fort of Dansborg in Tranquebar on India's southeastern coast following a treaty signed November 19, 1620 with the local ruler of the Tanjore kingdom. Between 1624 and 1636 it extended trading factories to Surat, Bengal, Java and Borneo, and the company came to import so much tea that it reportedly smuggled some ninety percent of its cargo into England to undercut the British East India Company's monopoly, though its trade collapsed entirely between 1643 and 1669 amid European wars, leaving Tranquebar as its only surviving possession until Danish reinforcements arrived in 1669. A second Danish East India Company was chartered in 1670 and ran until it was dissolved and refounded as the Asiatic Company in 1729, having tolerated private trading expeditions in its later years to survive a financial crisis between 1721 and 1725.