MIKE Lynch, the entrepreneur who built his Autonomy Group into one of europe's most successful technology companies, has made a $20m (€15m) bet on an anti-hacking firm.
Tipperary-born Lynch, who sold Autonomy Group to HP for $11bn, subsequently set up $1bn investment firm Invoke Capital to buy stakes in cutting-edge technology firms.
The investment in UK cyber security group Darktrace is the fund's first investment. It is targeting spending between $10m and $20m on each of its punts.
Lynch and some of his former executives from Autonomy have put $100m of their own money into the fund.
Darktrace's technology works by luring hackers into certain parts of a company's network where it is able to track them down. It creates so-called honey-pot files to act as bait for hackers before unmasking them.
The spy theme is continued throughout the company, as Jonathan Evans, a former MI5 director-general, is a board member of Darktrace.
The sale of Autonomy in 2010 was the biggest-ever buyout of a European technology firm. However, the deal went sour, with HP accusing Lynch of misrepresenting Autonomy's finances. It wrote down the value of the firm by $8.8bn.
Lynch has denied these claims and said HP mishandled the deal.
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