For more than a decade now, the growth of the global economy has been twinned inexorably with the rapid rise of a number of technology companies. Many of those, such as Twitter, Facebook and Amazon, have gone on to become global monoliths worth billions. In the process, their rise sparked a decade-long deluge of public and private equity investment in technology.

However, the next generation of tech-driven businesses has started to run into trouble. The highest-profile and most public of these has been WeWork, the office rental company that claims to be a tech firm. The business was forced to abandon its IPO earlier this year after lukewarm interest from investors who questioned its route to profitability.