Dr. Mike Lynch

Dr Mike Lynch, OBE, FREng, FRS, is the founder of Invoke Capital, which invests in fundamental European technologies, including Darktrace, Europe’s fastest-growing cybersecurity company, Sophia Genetics, the fastest-growing clinical genomics company in the world and Luminance, which applies machine learning techniques to the time-consuming legal due diligence process.

He has long been regarded as a visionary figure in technology, described by the Financial Times as “the doyen of European software” and by the Sunday Times as “Britain’s Bill Gates”. He is a Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister through the Council on Science and Technology and is a UK Trade Ambassador.

Dr Lynch has founded and advised a number of companies ranging from Neurodynamics to Blinkx. Dr Lynch is best known for founding Autonomy in 1996, the UK’s largest software company, member of the FTSE 100 with a market capitalisation of $11bn when it was acquired by Hewlett Packard in 2011. He has advised venture capital and private equity groups such as Apax Partners and the Carlyle Group.

Dr Lynch is a Fellow of the Royal Society, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, an Honorary Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge, and Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Suffolk.

Alongside his entrepreneurial career, Dr Lynch has been a non-executive director of the BBC and the British Library, among other advisory and board roles including Cambridge Enterprise and on the advisory board of the Newton Institute. He is a council member of the of the Foundation for Science and Technology, of which he is also a trustee. He is an advisor to the Prince’s Trust technology group and a founding investor of Bridges Venturing, which is a social investment firm. And he is a member of the “Create the Change” board at the Francis Crick Institute.

During his career, Dr Lynch has received many awards and accolades, from “Outstanding Contribution” in the UKIT awards to “Entrepreneur of the Year” and “Most Influential Person in UK IT”.