Blinkx, an online video search company spun out of Mike Lynch's Autonomy, lost a third of its market value yesterday after a Harvard Business School professor published a blog alleging it used questionable tactics to boost advert revenue. Shares in London-listed Blinkx were down 33 per cent to 117p at mid-afternoon.

Analysts said the share's decline was prompted by allegations in the online article by Benjamin Edelman. He noted that Blinkx's revenue per employee was twice that of competitors

Blinkx said in a statement that it “strongly refutes the assertions made and conclusions drawn in the blog post”.

Blinkx’s house broker Citigroup said in a note about the sell-off that “we view this as a significant overreaction”. – (Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2014)