Mike Lynch: The UK Tech Pioneer Feared Missing After Yacht Sinks Off Sicily

UK businessman Mike Lynch’s superyacht, “Bayesian,” sank off the coast of Sicily, leaving six people missing, including Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter, Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer, Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo, and their wives. The tragedy occurred while Lynch was celebrating his legal victory in a major US fraud case. Fifteen of the 22 people on board were rescued, including Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares.

Mike Lynch, born in 1965 in Chelmsford, studied physics, mathematics, and biochemistry at Cambridge University, where his groundbreaking PhD research in signal processing gained recognition. In 1996, he founded Autonomy, the UK’s largest software firm, which he sold to HP for $11 billion in 2011. Lynch was later accused of fraud by HP, leading to a decade-long legal battle, which ended in his acquittal in June 2023. After selling Autonomy, Lynch founded the venture capital firm Invoke.