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Ortmann and van der Kolk became harder to budge out of their home.

While they were sketching out a framework for the new business, Dotcom was reaching out to potential investors while Batato came up with marketing plans to sell the new venture to the public. Once again, Kiwi domain registry entrepreneur Tony Lentino — who had helped save the mansion for the family — was Dotcom’s saviour, although this time in the form of an investor. He provided the seed funding and acted as the launch chief executive for the company. “Anything we needed to get done with the new company he was 100 per cent behind it,” says Dotcom. He was “really impressive . . . So, when the new Mega is a big success, he is the person who deserves to have a great benefit from it.”

The business faced constant interference as it came closer to launch. It was initially registered in Gabon as me.ga — and then faced the prospect of the country suspending access to the domain name. The country’s communications minister, Blaise Louembe, justified the decision, saying: “Gabon cannot serve as a platform or screen for committing acts aimed at violating copyrights, nor be used by unscrupulous people.”

Dotcom rejected the slight on Twitter: “Gabon Minister used time machine to analyze legality of the future Mega. Verdict: Cyber crime! Gets $5 award from the FBI.”

It was also blocked from banking in New Zealand. Dotcom had sought out a personal account while the business wanted its own facilities. It was forced to look offshore.

“We are a New Zealand company that is setting up perfectly legitimate business with good people on the management team and they wouldn’t give us an account — just because it has something to do with me,” he complained.

They settled on mega.co.nz — with Dotcom saying he would rely on New Zealand’s legal system to protect the company from unfair interference.

Timing was critical in the launch. Money couldn’t come soon enough but the date Dotcom had chosen was one which would catch the world’s attention. Standing in their way was the challenge of designing then building software that would fulfil a revolutionary purpose. In all, it would need 50,000 lines of code to be written in a matter of months, so it could be launched on 20 January, one year after the raid.

ORTMANN AND VAN der Kolk work just metres from each other in the Orakei home to which they have been bailed. Van der Kolk’s son Xander

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