Joint-stock companies are enterprises whose capital is divided in shares which are bought and sold. The purchasers of those shares became owners of the business in the proportion evidenced by the number of shares they hold. This system was used to gather capital from the investors that purchased the shares with low risk.
After obtaining the legitimacy to do so from King James I of England, the joint-stock company Virginia established the first settlement in North America, founding the city of Jamestown in 1607. These companies used the raw materials in the New World, hired the landless native people or English inmigrants and generated wealth in American land since their arrival.
The difference between the British and other manners of colonization such as the Spanish, was that the first was conducted by its people instead of by the rulings of a king. British entrepeneurs gathered capital from investors using the joint-stock model and moved to America to perform their business activities there.