Below is a summary of what seems to be the story of Lynch. The tech of darktrace is the sort of stuff that seems to come up from time to time ie using predictive software. And of course it seems very coincidental that two of the key players in the alleged fraud die in days of each other, in odd circumstance. The software in question appears to have been wanted by one of the worlds top PE firms (I lacked the skill to look into this PE firm, others might be able to.
Anyway I have probably jumped the shark but it was odd that the media was also mentioning the death of the co-accused, almost drawing the publics attention to it.
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Autonomy was founded in 1996 by Lynch, David Tabizel and Richard Gaunt.[5] With Lynch as chief executive officer (CEO), the search software company grew to become one of the UK's top 100 public companies, and a leading company in Silicon Fen.[12][4] In October 2011 Autonomy was sold to Hewlett-Packard for more than $11 billion (£8.6 billion).[12] The sale would eventually lead to civil and criminal cases against Lynch and Autonomy's chief financial officer (CFO) Sushovan Hussain.[12]
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Founds Darktrace - Darktrace's product uses unsupervised (in particular) machine learning techniques to build an intrinsic "pattern of life" for every network, device, and user within an organisation. From this evolving understanding of 'normal', it can then detect potential threats as they emerge in real time.[19] It employs an autonomous response technology, Antigena, to take action against in-progress cyber-attacks.[20] The product also visualises network activity on a user interface, called the 'Threat Visualiser'.[21] Since the company's inception in 2013, its technology has been deployed some 9,000 times.[22]
Darktrace has claimed that it has the capability to defend against zero-day attacks, for example some log4j attacks.
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In November 2018, Lynch was indicted for fraud in the US along with Stephen Chamberlain, former vice president of finance at Autonomy. They both get off the charges when a jury dismisses them.
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Darktrace share price fell 12 per cent when Quintessential first disclosed its short position on 30 January 2023. The shares then fell a further 8 per cent the following day, after the report was published, down to 200p.[16]
On 18 July 2023, EY concluded its review into the company’s contracts and internal financial processes. EY found a “small number of errors and inconsistencies” with some of the contracts but nothing that would be “material” to Darktrace's financial statements.
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In April 2024, the private equity business, Thoma Bravo, offered to acquire the Darktrace for $5.3 billion.
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The co-defendant of British tech tycoon Mike Lynch - who is currently missing in Italy - has died after being hit by a car. Stephen Chamberlain, 52, was Mr Lynch's co-defendant in his US fraud trial in which both men were acquitted following the $11bn (£8.64bn) sale of the software giant Autonomy. Mr Chamberlain died after being fatally struck by the vehicle while out running in Cambridgeshire on Saturday and his family has now paid tribute to him.
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Lynch dies days later in a boating accident in a freak weather even.
post just found on X about Lynch’s other company Darkyrace and its many ties to intelligence agencies in US/UK. https://x.com/michaelewriter/status/1825648751618232715?s=46&t=Nwg1vy4jg3_JlX1SQMYB9A
It seems Mike Lynch, currently missing at sea off the coast of Sicily, was deeply involved with the security services.
Lynch founded Autonomy in 1996. Their speciality was fingerprint recognition. This is covered in most of the press coverage as the company was at the centre of his recent trial for fraud in the US. However, what isn’t covered so much is the company he funded next: Darktrace.
Darktrace was founded in 2013 as a leading cyber AI company and were set-up to prevent data loss and data theft by “insider threats.” They were created as a response to Bradley Manning’s leaks to Wikileaks and founded just days after the first of Edward Snowden’s revelations was published by The Guardian. They were particularly concerned with stopping Wikileaks-style leaks of information.
They were seed-funded by Invoke Capital, a specialist technology investment fund headed by Lynch.
“Darktrace is the world’s leading cyber AI company and the creator of Autonomous Response technology.
Its self-learning AI is modeled on the human immune system and used by over 3,500 organizations to protect against threats to the cloud, email, IoT, networks and industrial systems. This includes insider threat, industrial espionage, IoT compromises, zero-day malware, data loss, supply chain risk and long-term infrastructure vulnerabilities.”
Darktrace is known for extensively hiring former spies and was founded when Lynch brokered a meeting between GCHQ officers and Cambridge mathematicians. The company boasts that it has former members of MI5, MI6, CCHQ, the CIA, the NSA, and the FBI on staff.
One of the co-founders was Stephen Huxter, a senior figure in MI5’s “cyber defence team” who became Darktrace’s managing director. Darktrace later appointed Dave Palmer, who had worked at MI5 and GCHQ, as its director of technology, while John Richardson OBE, director of security, had a long career in “UK government security and intelligence” working on “cyber defence”. - Source, declassifieduk.org
Sir Jonathan Evans, former director general of MI5 joined Darktrace’s board in an advisory role in 2013. Former foreign secretary Amber Rudd did so in 2020.
Interestingly, as a side note, one of the major investors in Darktrace is Vitruvian Partners. The vice-president and cyber-security adviser of Vitruvian Partners is Alexander Arbuthnot. His mother is Lady Emma Arbuthnot, the Westminster chief magistrate who oversaw the extradition proceedings against Julian Assange.
But such is Darktrace’s profile that CEO Nicole Eagan accompanied Prime Minister David Cameron on an official visit to Washington D.C. to discuss cyber security policy with then U.S. President Barack Obama.
It’s been quite a few months for Darktrace in 2024.
In April, it was announced that Darktrace is to be bought by US private equity firm Thoma Bravo in a deal worth 5.32 billion dollars (£4.25 billion).
In June, Lynch and his co-defendant Stephen Chamberlain were found not guilty at their fraud and conspiracy trial. Chamberlain worked with Lynch at Autonomy as Vice President of Finance and later became COO of Darktrace. They both left in 2018 when charges were filed.
Chamberlain was killed after being hit by a car on Saturday. 48 hours later Lynch’s yacht was sunk off Sicily.