Mike Lynch (businessman)

Michael Richard Lynch (born 16 June 1965) is a British entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of Autonomy Corporation and the founder of Invoke Capital. Mike Lynch additionally became a co-founder, alongside Invoke Capital, of cybersecurity company Darktrace. Mike Lynch also has several other roles, including membership of the Council for Science and Technology which advises the UK government.

His entrepreneurship is associated with Silicon Fen. Lynch is known for his work applying techniques from signal processing, machine learning and pattern recognition to unstructured information.Profile: Mike Lynch
The Guardian, 19 August 2011 Lynch has been accused of fraudulently inflating the value of Autonomy prior to its sale to Hewlett-Packard, which has resulted in litigation and a request for his extradition to the US.

Early life and education

Lynch was born in Ilford, Essex in 1965 and grew up near Chelmsford, Essex. His mother was a nurse from Tipperary and his father a fireman from Cork.Business big shot: Mike Lynch of Autonomy
The Times, 8 July 2008

In 1976, aged 11, he won a scholarship to Bancroft's School, Woodford. From there he went to Christ's College, Cambridge to study Natural Sciences. He combined mathematics, biological and physical sciences, taking the combination of advanced physics, mathematics and biochemistry in the IB Tripos. For part II, he chose electrical sciences where he first met Peter Rayner, his mentor in the signal processing laboratory of the engineering department. After graduating he went on to do a PhD in signal processing and communications research at the University of Cambridge, and then undertook a research fellowship in adaptive pattern recognition.

Entrepreneurial career

In the late 1980's, Lynch’s founded his first company, Lynett Systems Ltd. which designed electronic synthesizers. The company produced designs and audio products for the music industry. One of his inventions included a sampler for the Atari ST known as the Lynex.

In 1991 he set up Cambridge Neurodynamics, which specialized in computer-based fingerprint recognition.

In 1991, Lynch was a co-founder of Neurascript, a company which focused on software that delivered the recognition, extraction, indexing, classification and data capture of information from business documents.  Neurascript was sold to Dicom Group PLC during a trade sale.

In 1996 Lynch co-founded Autonomy Corporation. and he served Autonomy as CEO. During this time Autonomy acquired Dremedia, Virage ($13m), Verity ($500m), Zantaz ($375m) and Interwoven ($606m). In 2000, Autonomy Corporation was listed on Easdaq, Nasdaq and the London stock exchange. Autonomy Corporation became a FTSE100 company by 6 December.

In 2004, using the technology developed at Autonomy Corporation, Lynch founded Blinkx, a company which focused on providing video search services in the consumer internet sector.  Blinkx went public on the London Stock Exchange (AIM) in May, 2007 with a valuation of $1Bn.

In 2008, Lynch invested in Featurespace, a company set up by Professor Bill Fitzgerald. Featurespace originally focused on the development of software that detects anomalous transactions. Shortly after, Featurespace converted from a consultancy into a technology company and began developing a new form of data analysis called “adaptive behavioural analytics”. FeatureSpace expanded by 624% and employs 320 people across Cambridge, Singapore and Atlanta.

In October 2011 Autonomy was sold to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion. In May 2012, HP fired Mike Lynch and later recorded a writedown of around $8.8 billion related to the acquisition due to "extensive accounting errors and misrepresentations" at Autonomy. Lynch faced a civil case in the UK and charges in the US related to the allegations.

In February 2013, Lynch raised $1 billion through his Invoke Capital fund to invest in up and coming British technology companies. In September 2013, Invoke Capital participated in the funding of American Swiss biotechnology company, Sophia Genetics, which provides genomic and radiomic analysis for hospitals.

In 2014, Lynch assisted in raising $13.75M in Series B financing in a round led by his company Invoke Capital. Other financiers included Swisscom and Endeavour Vision. Following this investment, the company was ranked among the 50 smartest companies by the MIT Technology Review in 2017.

In September 2013, Lynch announced Invoke had made its first investment, putting up to $20m into Darktrace (alongside Hoxton Ventures and Talis Capital) which uses the same Bayesian mathematics as Autonomy and describes itself as "the world's first behavioural cyber defence platform." As well as financial support, Invoke Capital also provided commercial and technical expertise and personnel, with around 15 Invoke employees moving over to Darktrace in 2013, including CEO Poppy Gustafsson and CTO Jack Stockdale.

On 14 September 2016, Invoke Capital announced its investment, in collaboration with Slaughter and May, in legal technology company Luminance.

In April 2021, Following its confirmation to float, Darktrace was listed on the London Stock Exchange with an initial public offering (IPO) of Shares at 250 pence per Share.  That day, Darktrace shares climbed to more than 358p, up 43% from its IPO price, and peaked at nearly 1000p five months later, but by 24 January 2022 had fallen back to 362p amid allegations from analysts its products were "snake oil".

Other interests

He was a member of the board of Cambridge Enterprise, and a member of the Council for Science and Technology. He was also a member of the Council of the Foundation for Science and Technology and a Hub Mentor in the Enterprise Hub of the Royal Academy of Engineering. Lynch was a trustee of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and a member of the board of the Create the Change Campaign at the Crick Institute, for Cancer Research UK.

He was a non-executive director of Featurespace and Blinkx plc.

He has previously served as a non-executive director to the board of the BBC
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