Autonomy founder Mike Lynch is reportedly among those missing after his superyacht sunk off the coast of Sicily, according to multiple media reports including Italian news site la Repubblica.
Lynch has been described as Britain’s Bill Gates, having in 1996 co-founded global software giant Autonomy, a spin off from computer finger print recognition firm Cambridge Neurodynamics.
Lynch served as Autonomy’s CEO for over fifteen years, during which time it became one of the UK’s most successful technology companies listed on the FTSE 100, acquiring companies including email archiving and litigation support company Zantaz for $375m, Interwoven (now iManage) for $606m and eDiscovery provider Iron Mountain Digital for $380m.
Lynch is also the founder of Invoke Capital Partners, a machine learning and artificial intelligence investment and advisory company, which founded contract review company Luminance and seed funded cybersecurity company Darktrace. In 2017 he spoke at the GlenLegal conference about how AI will disrupt the legal sector.
Lynch has for the past decade faced charges surrounding the sale of Autonomy to HP in 2011, and in just the last few weeks was acquitted of fraud charges in the United States. The Telegraph and other publications report that Lynch had invited to his yacht guests from Clifford Chance as well as his own company Invoke Capital to celebrate him being acquitted.
The superyacht sank in the early hours of Monday off the coast of Sicily. According to multiple mainstream news reports, one person has been confirmed dead and six are missing.
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