Mike Lynch

Mike is a celebrated technologist and has a proven track record of identifying and monetising fundamental technologies.

Having pioneered three of the biggest success stories in UK tech – Autonomy, Blinkx and Darktrace – Mike is regarded as Britain's most established technology entrepreneur. Dr Lynch read Natural Sciences at Cambridge University, where he also gained a Ph.D. and held a research fellowship in adaptive pattern recognition. In the late 1980s he founded his first company, Lynett Systems, before founding Autonomy in 1996. Mike served as CEO of Autonomy for 15 years, during which time it became one of the UK's most successful technology companies on the FTSE100. It was acquired by HP for $11 billion in 2011.

In 2012, Mike founded Invoke Capital to create, invest in and support world-leading fundamental technology businesses within Europe. Portfolio companies include the world-leader in cyber AI, Darktrace, which employs more than 1,500 people globally, Featurespace, the most advanced platform for fraud and financial crime management, Luminance, a leading artificial intelligence platform which supports over 300 organisations globally, and most recently Hearable, an AI-driven mobile application for people with hearing loss.

Referred to as the UK's answer to Bill Gates, Mike has won numerous awards. He was awarded an OBE for Services to Enterprise in 2006 and was elected to the Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology in 2011, where he advised on matters including the opportunities and risks of the development of AI in the UK and the Government’s role in the regulation of these technologies.

Mike is a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and an honorary fellow of Christ's College Cambridge. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in April 2014, a non-executive director to the BBC’s Executive Board in 2006 and a trustee of the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA) in 2010.

Mike is a generous supporter of many causes, including the Royal Botanic Gardens - Kew, Cancer Research UK, Cambridge University, The Prince's Trust's technology group, The Alan Turing Institute, The Francis Crick Institute and a number of educational charities. He also contributes to conservation charities and preserves rare breeds.