British technology tycoon Mike Lynch – reportedly one of six tourists missing after a luxury yacht sank off the coast of Italy – founded software giant Autonomy in 1996, and made his name as one of Britain’s most influential entrepreneurs through the company.

He has been described at points as the Bill Gates of Britain, for founding the company which became one of the biggest enterprise software firms on the planet.

He seemed to live up to the moniker when he negotiated an 11 billion US dollar (£8.64 billion) sale of Autonomy to Silicon Valley pioneer Hewlett Packard (HP), which generated a more than 800 million US dollar windfall for him.

But the sale also kicked off a 13-year legal saga. It was only in June this year that Mr Lynch was cleared of charges alleging he orchestrated a fraud and conspiracy leading up to the deal, which turned into a costly albatross for HP.

He faced more than 20 years in US prison if convicted of the fraud and conspiracy allegations, and the Times reported that he spent 13 months under house arrest awaiting the trial that ended in June.

Being accused of a massive fraud represented a dramatic turn in fortunes for Mr Lynch.

Born in Essex, son of a nurse and a fireman, he was made an OBE for services to enterprise in 2006.

That same year, he was appointed to the board of the BBC, and was later elected to then-prime minister David Cameron’s council for science and technology in 2011.

He advised Mr Cameron on subjects including “the opportunities and risks of the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and the government’s role in the regulation of these technologies”.

It took more than a decade for Mr Lynch to clear his name, but the acquittal vindicated the 59-year-old father-of-two, who spent years fiercely denying he did anything wrong while painting HP as a technological train wreck.

In his first interview after being cleared, he told The Times newspaper: “I’d had to say goodbye to everything and everyone, because I didn’t know if I’d ever be coming back.”

Mr Lynch is among six tourists missing after the luxury yacht sank in bad weather off the coast of Sicily, sources said.

Four of the missing passengers are British and two are American, Italian news website la Repubblica stated.