- published: 14 Oct 2009
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Autonomy Corporation is a multinational enterprise software company founded in Cambridge, United Kingdom in 1996, which became a subsidiary of Hewlett-Packard in October 2011. The company has joint headquarters in Cambridge and San Francisco, USA.
The company uses a combination of technologies born out of research at the University of Cambridge. It develops a variety of enterprise search and knowledge management applications using adaptive pattern recognition techniques centered on Bayesian inference in conjunction with traditional methods.
Autonomy was founded in Cambridge, England by Dr Michael Lynch and Richard Gaunt in 1996 as a spin-off from Cambridge Neurodynamics.
Autonomy floated in 1998 on the EASDAQ exchange at a share price of approximately £0.30. At the height of the "dot com bubble", the peak share price was £30.
In December 2005 Autonomy acquired Verity, Inc., one of its main competitors, for approximately US$500m. In 2005 Autonomy also acquired Neurodynamics.
In May 2007, after exercising an option to buy a stake in technology start up Blinkx Inc, and combining it with its consumer division, Autonomy floated Blinkx on a valuation of $250m.