10 Biggest Tech Acquisitions in History

8. HP buys Autonomy – $11.7 billion

Well, if there ever was a failed acquisition this is it. Autonomy Corporation is a multinational software company created back in 1996. Its business revolved around analyzing large scale unstructured big data, combining technologies born in the labs of the Cambridge University. Among its tools were enterprise search technologies, and knowledge management apps.

In 2011, Hewlett-Packard (HP) decided to acquire the company, offering the company $11.7 billion, which was about 64% over the firm’s market value; a generous offer that raised many eyebrows across the world especially since many didn’t see the potential that HP was supposedly investing in.

Within a year, HP was accepting its failure and writing off $8.8 billion of Autonomy’s value, pointing the finger towards accounting improprieties, misrepresentations and failure to disclose the true state of the company by the previous management.

Things have gotten so far that in May 2015, HP has unveiled details regarding the $5 billion fraud case it filed against the founder of Autonomy. HP claims Mike Lynch inflated the revenues of the business he was leading by about $700 million, which misled the company into offering $11 billion for the deal.