Quiet man back in spotlight as NewsCorp eyes Blinkx

by Mattthew Rock - Friday, 9th May 2008

The markets are buzzing with rumours that Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation is preparing a bid for UK video search website Blinkx; shares have soared up 50 per cent up today.

Blinkx was spun out of quoted Cambridge software group Autonomy in May last year and, with Autonomy's lock-in period almost over (it owns 20 per cent of Blinkx), the rumour mill is chugging strongly; even Google is said to be interested. That's not surprising considering Blinkx has outperformed the uberlord of search in its field of video.

Blinkx was founded by founded in 2004 by Suranga Chandratillake, before merging with Autonomy and then floating on the AIM market.

Behind the scenes of that, and any future sale, is the quiet and seriously bright entrepreneur Mike Lynch, original founder of Autonomy. Lynch featured on the front cover of Real Business way back in autumn 1997 when we tipped him for stardom. He's since become one of the UK's genuine global entrepreneurs, albeit keeping a relatively low profile.

To remind yourself about the talented Mr Lynch, click here for a pretty definitive profile.

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