Among those reported missing when a yacht sank off the coast of Sicily on Monday morning is billionaire British entrepreneur in the tech sector Mike Lynch, the founder of the software company Autonomy.

L ynch, who has been listed by Forbes, was aboard the yacht with 20 others, including his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah. The yacht was struck by a tornado, according to the Italian coast guard, that resulted in the mishap. Of the 21 people on board, 15 have been rescued so far, with one confirmed death, and search operations are still under way for others unaccounted for, that comprises two American nationals.

Lynch co-founded Autonomy in 1996 with David Tabizel and Richard Gaunt, which developed software that could handle massive amounts of data. It also won significant accounts, such as the United States and United Kingdom Governments, Shell, and BMW. In 2011, Autonomy was sold to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion, but the deal quickly became disputed when HP charged an $8.8 billion writedown based on "serious accounting improprieties," which it claimed had overestimated the value of Autonomy. Lynch has maintained all along to have been innocent to these allegations. The UK Serious Fraud Office investigated HP's complaint but in 2015, it dismissed it after investigating as no proof was found of that.

However, the UK court delivered its judgment against Lynch and dismissed the statement made by Autonomy of inflating its value in 2022. HP sought damages for $5 billion, but the final figure might be much lesser. In June 2024, Lynch was acquitted of 15 charges, including conspiracy and wire fraud during a three-month San Francisco trial, in which he maintained that he had never lied to anyone about Autonomy's valuation. Known in British media as "Britain's Bill Gates," Lynch holds a Ph.D. in signal processing and connectionist models from Cambridge University, where his research remains highly referenced.

He ran Autonomy in a notably quirky way, labeling office rooms after figures from James Bond. In 2006 he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to technology, though was subsequently privately approached by then UK Prime Minister David Cameron to join the Prime Minister's Advisory Council for Science and Technology. After selling Autonomy, Lynch founded Invoke Capital, which invests in companies like Darktrace, the fast-growing cybersecurity firm, and Luminance, the software company of legal firms. The business and technology communities are left reeling with the prospect of losing one of their most influential figures amidst further search efforts into Lynch and his daughter.