Public limited company may be formed for any lawful purpose by seven or more person by subscribing their names or his name to a memorandum and complying with the requirements of this Act in respect of registration.

Limited company must have the following ingredient for its formation.

Thus, Section 3(1) stipulates the existence of the following ingredients for the incorporation of a company: (i) Lawful purpose for which they should associate themselves;
(ii) Promoters of the company – at least seven in the case of a public company, at least two in the case of a private company and one in case of one person company;
(iii) Promoters must subscribe their names to the memorandum of association of the company;
(iv) Promoters must comply with the requirements of the Companies Act, 2013 in respect of registration of the company.

limited company may be formed either:-

(a) a company limited by shares; or
(b) a company limited by guarantee; or
(c) an unlimited company

However, Specified IFSC Public Company and Specified IFSC Private Company shall be formed only as a company limited by shares (MCA Notification Dated 4th January, 2017).

The process of incorporation is described in the pie chart below: