Fuelled by a scientific background in signal processing and pattern recognition, Michael Lynch's entrepreneurship allowed him to successfully make the leap from academia to business. Notably, Michael co-founded Autonomy in Cambridge in 1996 - the UK's largest software company until acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion in 2011.
Autonomy was built on technology that uses Bayesian methods to help organisations search and sort through unstructured information, including emails and phone records, by looking for patterns where there appear to be none. Michael led the company for 15 years, during which he was awarded an OBE for services to enterprise.
Later, Michael raised $1 billion through Invoke Capital, a technology investment and advisory company. In addition to providing funding, he offered inspiration and mentoring to inventors in the fields of engineering and technology. As a member of the Council for Science and Technology, he was an adviser to the UK government.
Dr Michael Lynch OBE FREng FRS died on 19 August 2024.
Subject groups
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Mathematics
Applied mathematics and theoretical physics, Statistics and Operational Research
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Engineering and Materials Science
Communications incl information theory, Computer engineering (including software)
