The launch of the East India Company in 1599 relied on the engagement of an investing public. Despite this, little is known about how and why ordinary individual investors chose to invest in the corporation or what institutional frameworks supported them. While the later ‘financial revolution’ would radically alter the relationship between the state, investors, and financial organizations, this process does not adequately explain the earlier development of an investing public. Using a newly developed dataset of members’ familial, neighbourhood, civic, and business connections, this article reconstructs the social networks of East India Company investors in 1599. This analysis reveals that the company was formulated within an intensely interconnected investment environment – linkages that were used to distribute information and provide access to seemingly illiquid markets. Social networks played a key role in how people decided about where, when, with whom, and how much to invest during the expansion of investment opportunities in early modern England.

1599 年东印度公司的成立依赖于投资大众的参与。尽管如此，对于普通个人投资者如何以及为什么选择投资于公司，或者支持他们的制度框架知之甚少。虽然后来的“金融革命”将从根本上改变国家、投资者和金融组织之间的关系，但这一过程并不能充分解释投资大众的早期发展。本文使用新开发的成员家庭、社区、公民和商业联系数据集，重建了 1599 年东印度公司投资者的社交网络。这一分析表明，该公司是在一个高度互联的投资环境中形成的——这些联系被用来分发信息并提供进入看似缺乏流动性的市场的机会。在现代早期英国投资机会扩大的过程中，社交网络在人们如何决定在哪里、何时、与谁以及投资多少方面发挥了关键作用。