2000
2000
Mark Morris co-founds JAM Warehouse, A Technology Incubator, based in Woodstock, Cape Town, together with Dr John Thorne and Angus Bowmaker Falconer.
The thought-starter of JAM Warehouse was for each of the Founders to incubate an idea and if successful, offer incubation-as-a-service to founding entrepreneurs. Incredibly, it’s the same ethos that drives our venture building firm, fiftyknots, 23 years later…
2000
Among the first tech product development projects by Jam Warehouse is a product called “Brand Director” that leaned heavily on Mark’s 15 years of experience as a brand and marketing director for international brands in SA. The brand director is anchored on a digital asset management foundation, overlayed with product lifecycle management business processes. Adopted and shaped by the needs of Tesco in its early development stages, the product became an in-house application, which has no doubt been extended and improved significantly but, to the best of our knowledge is still being used today and still supported by some of the original tech team.


2001
Kinetic was designed to achieve accurate Retail Execution of strategies developed for Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) Brands. The solution operated on a base foundation of Mobile Sales Force Automation and Mobile Customer CRM.
2003
Kinetic signs Heineken as its Index Customer. The relationship developed into a Sub-Saharan African collaboration as the solution rolled out into some truly unlikely countries such as Congo-Brazzaville and the Democratic Republic of Congo.


2004
Vector Logistics signed up and became a long term and very enjoyable customer to work with, for almost a decade.
2005
Kinetic landed its second large enterprise customer, Distell.
2007
Cadbury comes on board. A fantastic customer and relationship that endured for many years with lots of success along the way.


2008
SAB Miller Africa joins the JustEnough Mobile family of customers, rolling out across many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa including Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana and Namibia.


2008
Kinetic formally becomes part of the JustEnough Group, changing its name and starting to collaborate closely with the demand planning division of JustEnough.
2010
2010
JustEnough Mobile wins SAB South Africa, a “Grand-Prize” account, against 13 competitors from all over the world, including SAP, all the major consulting firms, and a few global alternatives.
2014
The JustEnough Mobile Solutions local management team initiate and conclude a management buyout of the company and its IP and start Sales Acumen Solutions, beginning the journey with a Retail Shopper Marketing platform, ShopperLogiQ, that attempts to radically change the world of retail loyalty programs.
2014
Acumen is briefly engaged on Blue Label Communications to help build “Retail Engage” and “Bonsella”, a shopper loyalty program that pays rewards in the form of airtime.
2015
Making sure that People in frail care facilities receive the right medicine & treatment at the right time seemed a worthy proposition, leading Acumen to partner Olympic Hervasa.
2016
An international break-out start-up, FiberLean Technologies, backed by listed entities Imerys (UK) and Omya (Swiss), contracted Acumen to provide a full range of IT support, Research and Development for the fledgling company that, after 10 years, was acquired by the Wehrhan Group, based in Germany.
2016
Blockhouse Shutters and Plantation Shutters awarded acumen the project to automate their sales systems. The relationship has grown from strength to strength and is as strong as ever today.
2017
Acumen was contracted to do Business Analysis and System Design for SAM Metal, with their in-house team doing the development. The project succeeded and was handed over accordingly.
2017
Development of Skills Café a revolutionary concept for the recruitment industry kicks off. This marks the beginning of what turns out to be a more than 5-year development process with a few false starts and pivots that ultimately come together in 2023 when the business sets itself up for international success.


2018
Acumen did the Enterprise Architecture and Solution Design phases of a Digital Transformation project for IQ Academy, with Dynamics 365 as the core platform.
2018
Adagin Technologies graduated from the University of Stellenbosch Launch Lab and joined our venture-in-residence program. The journey from Seed to Series-A would take 5 years for Adagin, leading to an international transition and go-to-market HQ based out of the Netherlands.
2018
With the realisation that Acumen is less of an incubator and mostly a venture-builder as the company builds startup products for itself and for entrepreneurs. And thus fiftyknots is born.


2018
Acumen uses PowerBI skills to develop the Business Intelligence portals for Innervation Payments Solutions, processing millions of card transactions happening in thousands of retails stores every hour.
2019
Acumen helped a revolutionary biotech company called Agriprotein to build technology that helps in the process of growing flies for protein. The tech worked and Agriprotein has gone on to achieve international success.
2019
Acumen partners up with Dash Applications in the USA to build an intelligent Amazon Advertising Recommendations Platform for the USA Team.
2019
A relationship that endures today with Professional Vison Group, an eLearning business (learners to date c.800,000 TBC), started in 2019 with a strategy workshop in which Acumen proposed to rebuild their technology, moving them to the cloud with an enterprise stack that would perform at scale.
2019
Acumen Spins out a Time & Attendance module into a separate business called Better Times, providing onsite time and attendance solutions for industries outside of agriculture, including construction, security, hospitality, and education.


2020
2020
Acumen builds an RFID tracking system for Perfect Plants in Phillipi to monitor the growing stages of plants for the export market.
2020
Acumen starts work on ShopFront, A visual merchandising solution, becoming part of the fiftyknots venture portfolio, with North American market exit planned for 2024.
2020
Acumen builds the eCommerce layer for a leading point-of-sale business, Arch Software. The eCommerce layer is required to be perfectly in synch with the physical POS in stores to deliver a seamless, omnichannel experience for Arch’s customers. A successful solution delivery has led to deployment in Arch Key Customers including OK Foods and Ultra Liquors, with the eCommerce layer destined to support over 6,000 stores.
2020
Taking advantage of our nopCommerce competency, Acumen starts development of Yisani, a marketplace for wellness practitioners.
2021
Acumen builds the IOT monitoring data acquisition and monitoring layer for Agritech startup, AgriLogiQ.
2021
Acumen is contracted to upgrade Blue Willow Group from on-premises financial and manufacturing systems to Microsoft’s new Business Central concept, including manufacturing automation.


2021
Acumen build MobiNET, born of covid and the need for switchboards and PABX systems that are suited to the work from home and hybrid work from home future of business.


2021
Acumen’s team helps build MVP for PinPin, a B2C Application in the gaming market.
2022
Acumen moves into awesome new offices on the Beachfront of Tableview.


2022
Acumen commences a project to upgrade and automate the sales systems for ZestLife, a health insurance business providing Gap cover for the medical aid market.
2022
RedRobin Agency launches as a as a marketing automation venture-in-residence with the portfolio.


2023
Acumen forms a relationship with TimeXtender completes a number of successful upgrades and Cloud Conversions for customers including SA Airlink, KPMG, Orca Energy, Mr Price and Fermel. Acumen also signs up Global Carbon Exchange and pushed TimeXtender to its limits to build and deploy a working solution for this customer.
2023
Gigtribe, an internal passion project and venture which aims to help optimise project resources, launches in market.


2023
Acumen is involved with helping fiftyknots bring Healthfull, a budding biotech business that uses AI to achieve gut health, to fruition.


2023
Acumen starts to build Zawadi, a financial inclusion play that could help millions of disadvantaged people survive a little easier, simply by selling their attention.


2023
Fiftyknots and RedRobin team up with “Humanoid”, a fractional marketing concierge that combines the power of AI and digital marketing automation tools with the skills of passionate marketing strategists to further amplify venture growth.

