Mike Lynch, recently acquitted in HP-Autonomy fraud case, is missing after yacht capsized off Sicily (updated)

Update: Authorities have yet to access the inside of the sunken yacht, and Mike Lynch is still classified as missing. Other details have emerged in the interim.

The accident appears to have been caused by a major storm and a resulting tornado-like water column that ensnared and damaged the yacht. Among the other six people still missing are Lynch’s 18 year-old daughter and Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer. The voyage was to celebrate Lynch being acquitted of criminal charges in the U.S. and several members of his legal team were also on board. (The ship was registered to Lynch’s wife, one of the survivors.) By a terrible coincidence, the other person acquitted in Lynch’s trial — Autonomy’s finance head Stephen Chamberlain — had died just the week before when he was hit by a car while out jogging. Original article continues below.

Mike Lynch, the investor and high-profile founder of U.K. tech firm Autonomy, has been declared missing at sea after the yacht he was on, the Bayesian, capsized in a storm off the coast of Sicily early Monday morning.

TechCrunch confirmed with a source close to the rescue operation that Lynch is one of six people missing from the boat. Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, is one of the 15 who have been rescued. One body has been found.

The news is a dramatic, tragic development for one of the more colorful, and sometimes controversial, figures in technology out of the U.K.

Lynch’s enterprise technology firm Autonomy was acquired in 2011 by HP for $11 billion — a major milestone for U.K. technology. But it quickly turned sour, and HP sued Lynch and other executives at the company, arguing it was misled in the transaction.

HP claimed that the deal led to a $4 billion loss — money it then demanded from Lynch and his former CFO. Lynch (pictured above, left) long asserted that he acted in good faith and that he was being made into a scapegoat over a merger gone bad.

That legal drama went on for more than a decade and involved a host of other thorny chapters, including Lynch’s extradition to the U.S. and a lot of very bad publicity for Lynch himself. It also led to a second civil case that took place in 2022 in the U.K., which Lynch lost.

The U.S. criminal case, where Lynch was charged with 15 counts of fraud and conspiracy, went to trial earlier this year in San Francisco. Finally, in June, Lynch was acquitted.

“I am elated with today’s verdict and grateful to the jury for their attention to the facts over the last ten weeks. My deepest thanks go to my legal team for their tireless work on my behalf,” Lynch said at the time. “I am looking forward to returning to the UK and getting back to what I love most: my family and innovating in my field.”

In the interim years, Lynch built up a profile in the U.K. as an investor, most prominently as the founder of Invoke Capital. The VC firm was the biggest investor in cybersecurity firm Darktrace, a connection that was not without its own controversy. It also invested in Sophia Genetics, Featurespace and Luminance, among others. And it appeared that this is the route that he was set to continue.

Our thoughts go out to his family, friends and colleagues. We’ll update this post as we learn more.