Angela Bacares
Cyber security provision has long been seen as a lucrative area, and Darktrace is both one of the biggest and most controversial UK names in the industry. Angela Bacares now owns most of the stake held in the company by its founding family after her husband, Mike Lynch, set it up.
Lynch, once known as Britain’s answer to Bill Gates, is caught up in another tech-sector controversy, and could face charges in America, relating to the £9 billion sale of Autonomy, his software firm, to Hewlett-Packard of the US. He lost a High Court case last year over allegations that he and another Autonomy executive misrepresented the company to its US buyers.
Darktrace is in the process of defending itself from short sellers who allege its shares are exposed to questionable accounting, marketing and sales practices. It hired EY in February 2023 to run an independent review of its finances as part of moves to dismiss the claims, which it strenuously denies, saying its run with the greatest integrity.
The Cambridge-based company was established in 2013 by mathematicians and online security experts. It uses self-learning AI to keep clients safe from a range of threats, including ransomware and cloud computing attacks.
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