As the story of the Amsterdam shows, sea voyages were not without risks. In order to spread the high risk and high cost of individual sea voyages, money was collected in 1602 for a major new venture, called the United East India Company, now known today as the Dutch East India Company or ‘VOC’, the abbreviation of its Dutch name. In just a short time, over a thousand people subscribed as shareholders. Everyone wanted in on the act, from rich merchants to housekeepers. More than 3.5 million guilders was collected. Shares were already being sold on before the first ship had even left port under the East India Company flag. This signalled the birth of the world’s first multinational with listed shares. During the seventeenth century, the East India Company grew to become a global trading network with its own fortresses, warehouses and offices; it was also the only company in the Dutch Republic allowed to do business with Asia. The company also made a lot of money from the trade between different Asian countries. The backdrop to the founding of the East India Company – followed barely twenty years later by the Dutch West India Company – was the war the Netherlands were fighting at the time against Spain. The East India Company ships attacked many Spanish and Portuguese vessels and Spanish and Portuguese trading posts in Africa and Asia. Once the enemy was beaten, the East India Company took control of their trade and the local population. Consequently, Dutch investors in the company also made profits from warfare.