Christ’s College have issued a statement detailing their “deep shock and sadness” at the death of billionaire alum Mike Lynch.

A violent storm hit Lynch’s super yacht in the early hours of Monday morning. He was confirmed dead by a source close to the family yesterday (22/8).

In a statement, Christ’s College said: “It is with deep shock and sadness that we learned of the death of Dr Mike Lynch”.

“We offer our heartfelt condolences to his wife, Angela, and their elder daughter at this immensely difficult time,” they continued.

Professor Frank Kelly, fellow and former Christ’s Master, added that Lynch “had an ability to recognise strategically important technologies and the drive and acumen to commercialise them.”

“He was a powerful advocate for and supporter of tech start-ups in the UK. His passing is a huge loss to us all,” Kelly continued.

Lynch studied Natural Sciences at Christ’s and later gained a PhD in signal processing and communication research.

His doctoral thesis, Adaptive techniques in signal processing and connectionist models, is reportedly one of the most widely read pieces of research in the University Library.

On Tuesday, Christ’s released a statement addressing the missing status of the alum: “Along with the rest of the world we await developments north of Sicily with increasing trepidation.”

They continued: “Our thoughts are with his wife Angela and the rest of their family.”

The British businessman has since been confirmed dead after his body was recovered yesterday.

Lynch’s status was recognised by the college who made him a Lady Margaret Beaufort Fellow in 2006 in honour of his contributions to to the College.

In total, six bodies have been recovered from the wreck, with 15 people being rescued. However, the search is continuing for one person who is still missing, believed to be Lynch’s 18 year old daughter, Hannah.

Lynch was best known for his tech firm Autonomy, which he co-founded in Cambridge. The company founded in 1996 was named as one of the biggest 100 companies on the London Stock Exchange. It was later sold to Hewlett Packard (HP) for $11bn (£8.6bn) in 2011, for which Lynch netted £500m.

The deal later caused controversy after HP wrote off $8.8 billion dollars of Autonomy’s value, claiming “outright misrepresentations” of the company’s value by previous management. Less than three months ago, Lynch had been cleared of 15 counts of fraud in the US.