5 Facts About UK Tech Tycoon Mike Lynch Missing Since Yacht Sank Off In Italy

A superyacht which belonged to the family of UK businessman Mike Lynch sank off Italian island Sicily yesterday. Six people including Mike Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter, Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer, Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo, and their wives, have been missing since the yacht sank.

Mike Lynch was hosting his friends and family on the 56-metre luxury yacht called "Bayesian" to celebrate his win in a big US fraud case when the tragedy happened, according to news agency AFP. A total of 22 people were aboard the boat. Mike Lynch's wife Angela Bacares is among the fifteen people who were rescued before the yacht sank.

Here are 5 facts about UK tycoon Mike Lynch: 

• Mike Lynch was born in 1965 and was raised in Chelmsford town near London. His mother was a nurse and father was a fireman. 
• Mike Lynch went to Cambridge University where he studied physics, mathematics and biochemistry. He then went on to research signal processing for his PhD. His thesis is considered to be ground-breaking and is reportedly widely consulted in the university's library.
• Mike Lynch founded UK's largest software firm, Autonomy, in 1996, which searched and organised data using patented algorithms. He was called Britain's Bill Gates. 
• Fifteen years later, in 2001, Mike Lynch sold Autonomy to HP for $11 billion. Later, HP accused Lynch of fraud which lead to a decade-long trial. In June this year, after 12 year-long trial, Lynch was acquitted of all charges by a jury in San Francisco.
• After selling Autonomy, Mike Lynch set up venture capital firm Invoke, which backed big companies such as cyber security company Darktrace, software firm Featurespace and more.

With agency inputs