Mike Lynch, a British tech entrepreneur, is missing after a luxury yacht sunk off the coast of the Italian island of Sicily. After co-founding British tech firm Autonomy in 1996, and backing several successful tech firms, the businessman was regarded by some as the UK's answer to Microsoft founder Bill Gates. One person is dead and six are missing after a 56m superyacht called Bayesian, which has been linked to Mr Lynch's family, sank following bad weather.
His wife, Angela Bacares, has been rescued. The British tech tycoon made his riches by selling his company Autonomy to US computing giant Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011 for $11bn (£8.6bn).
But an intense legal battle following the high-profile acquisition loomed over Mr Lynch for over a decade. He was acquitted in the US in June on multiple fraud charges, over which he had been facing two decades in jail. In an interview on BBC Radio 4 in August, Mr Lynch said he believed he had only been able to prove his innocence in US court due to his wealth.
The sinking of the yacht came on the same day that Mr Lynch's co-defendant in the fraud case, Stephen Chamberlain, was confirmed by his lawyer as having died after being hit by a car in Cambridgeshire on Saturday. Born on 16 June 1965, Mr Lynch is the son of a nurse and a fireman, and was raised near Chelmsford in Essex. He studied Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge, where he earned a PhD in mathematical computing, and later undertook a research fellowship.
In 1991, Mr.