Mike Lynch
Michael Richard Lynch, OBE, FREng, DL, FRS (m. 1983) is an entrepreneur in the field of science and technology.
He was born in Ilford, Essex in 1965 and grew up near Chelmsford. In 1976, aged 11, he won a scholarship to Bancroft's School, Woodford. From there he came up to Christ’s College to read Natural Sciences. 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.
In the late 1980s Lynch formed Lynett Systems Ltd, producing designs and audio products for the music recording industry including the first ever sampler for the Atari ST, the Lynex, which was followed by the ADAS sampler for Atari, Mac & PC. This led to the offshoot D2D Systems which produced a software-only hard disk recording system for the Atari Falcon.
In 1991 he set up Cambridge Neurodynamics, which specialised in computer-based finger print recognition. In 1996 Lynch went on to co-found Autonomy Corporation and he served as CEO. In October 2011, Autonomy was sold to Hewlett-Packard and Lynch left the company in May 2012.
In February 2013, Lynch raised $1 billion through his Invoke Capital fund to invest in up and coming British technology companies. In September 2013, Lynch announced Invoke had made its first investment, putting up to $20m into Darktrace (alongside Hoxton Ventures and Talis Capital) which describes itself as 'the world's first behavioural cyber defence platform.' In July 2014, Invoke Capital invested in Sophia Genetics, the leader in clinical genomics, which to date has analysed over 25,000 patients.
Lynch is a member of the board of Cambridge Enterprise, and a member of the Council for Science and Technology. He is 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 is 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 has previously served as a non-executive director to the board of the BBC, on the board of the British Library, and as a trustee of the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA), where he was chairman of their investment committee.
In September 2012 he was inducted into the Digital Hall of Fame, British Interactive Media Association. He was named Entrepreneur of the Year in 1999 by the Confederation of British Industry and was awarded the Institution of Electrical Engineers medal for outstanding achievement. Lynch was awarded an OBE in the 2006 New Year Honours.
He is a Lady Margaret Beaufort Fellow of Christ’s College and is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.