Described as Britain's equivalent to Bill Gates when he sold Autonomy to HP for $11bn (£9bn) in 2011, last week the US government accused him of inflating revenues and misleading the company's auditors and analysts. It says the self-made millionaire made around $815m (£666m) from the deal. Lawyers for Mr Lynch called the indictment a "travesty of justice" and accused HP of using the fraud allegations to make up for its own "crippling errors". Darktrace counted heavily on Lynch's early patronage.