In 2000, Patrick Grove and a mate from university were preparing to list their company on the ASX. With little more than a business plan to create a Yahoo!-style web portal for Asia, the pair had already raised $20 million from dotcom-delirious investors. On the frothiest analysis, their company was worth $1 billion.

Then, on the first day of their pre-float roadshow, the Nasdaq went into freefall. “We'd been driven to this flashy hotel in Hong Kong in a limo. At the end of the week, we got the train back to the airport,” Grove recalls.