I had a look into this for Austria some time ago, for small companies there seem to be looser rules and it seems to be possible to start out with 5k deposit (or 10k, not sure). Then you would slowly add to the Stammkapital over time I think. More can be found here: https://www.wko.at/service/wirtschaftsrecht-gewerberecht/Ges...

Concerning LLC be careful that there are double taxation treaties and that you first find an accountant who specialises in running a LLC from Ger/Aut. Otherwise you’ll pay twice in tax + high fees for the extra paperwork the accountant needs to do locally.

I personally had a look at having a UK Ltd run from Austria, there are plenty of companies specialising in that (just google UK Ltd Österreich/Deutschland). Not sure to what extent that’s still possible post Brexit.

All in all, especially if the big company is willing to pay upfront, I would personally go for a GmbH, might be more expensive to set up but saves you troubles in the long term I think.

Having said that, I’m only a programmer myself, please don’t rely on my advice here, definitely talk to a local accountant about that, they usually have a free consultation to get started.