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We believe in people who believe in themselves

We are Fifty KnotsValue CreatorsVenture BuildersTech InnovatorsProduct DevelopersStart-up Scalers Co-Founders

Our innovative approach brings experience, urgency and industry expertise to building new ventures.

Oh, and authenticity. We’re big on that too.

BECOME A PARTNER

Entrepreneurship is f@£$ing hard.

At least, that’s our experience. So the more that related entrepreneurial journeys can leverage resources from one another, the better for everyone. In 2013, armed with scar tissue and the benefit of hindsight, this was the guiding thought behind Fifty Knots.

We had a simple theory: If we didn’t start each journey at zero, we could improve venture success rates. And if we could improve venture success rates, then we could change the way that capital engages with innovation. So we set about building an organisation that represented the partner we wished we’d had.

After investing profits from software projects and leveraging code and services to stretch every cent, Fifty Knots emerged from its pilot with a new respect for working capital, and the core engine for an infinite venture building model.

10 years later, here we are.

6 out of 10 start-ups fail to create any growth.

Thats a complete disaster.

We’re not going to pretend otherwise. It’s unacceptable. Because if entrepreneurs could simply spend fewer resources during the build phase, so many more would succeed.

The problem is simple: every start-up races from zero. Incubators and accelerators might provide guidance and access to capital, but the entrepreneur remains responsible for building their product, while all ventures are kept separate.

The game is in favour of the capital providers. But if we can make new ventures less reliant on capital, the start-up industry wins, entrepreneurship wins, and innovation wins.

That’s why you’re here.

Investors provide capital.

Accelerators; access to networks.

Fifty Knots builds your business with you.

With 100+ combined years of start-ups, product dev, and scaling technology, Fifty Knots partners with innovators and entrepreneurs, providing extensive help in the form of:

Shared infrastructure and expertise for finance, marketing, sales, support and cloud infrastructure

Rapid application development, product development, venture-building tools, scaling systems and specialized expertise.

Keeping it real, logical, objective and EQUITABLE, that’s the big one.

Ventures

Are you a seed investor looking for great adventures and opportunities?

REACH OUT

There’s a difference between a group of people who work together, and a group who co-create.

The latter is who we are, and what we do.

Our people look outside their comfort zones to design great products.

We have entrepreneurs building on their visions, and innovators creating the future we need.

We are all committed to leveraging our collective expertise to help start-ups succeed.

CEO

Lauren Drake

When Lauren isn’t working on a bucket-list of personal adventures, she’s dreaming about a better and faster way for entrepreneurs to build profitable new business ventures and getting to scale without risking their savings and investments, and making ventures more investable and less risky for investors.

When Lauren isn’t working on a bucket-list of personal adventures, she’s dreaming about better and faster way for entrepreneurs to build profitable new business ventures and getting to scale without risking their savings and investments, and making ventures more investable and less risky for investors.

An obsession with value-creation in all aspects of life drives Lauren and her team to be disruptive, inventive, creative and at the same time, compelling with new business models, conceptualized ideas and customer experiences.

Giving meaning, life, expression and value to ideas is what work-life is all about.

Executive Director and CIO

Alex van den Bosch

Alex will transform potential systems liabilities and overheads into valuable strategic assets.

Alex will transform potential systems liabilities and overheads into valuable strategic assets.

He loves helping ventures apply strategic enterprise architecture principles and practices with business, information, processes and technology whilst removing legacy system overhead and waste.

Together with an extensive team of specialists, they build sustainable new technology foundations and frameworks to deliver new technology products that don’t need high-maintenance and ongoing costs

IT Infrastructure executive

Micah Frank

Micah sees the world through the eyes of cloud-based machines and their users.

Micah sees the world through the eyes of cloud-based machines and their users.

The fine art and science of balancing space, performance, security and costs literally and figuratively, keeps Micah awake at night.

Being a cloud infrastructure architect frequently means thinking about every possible eventuality and scenario. Oh, and the complexity and permutations are probably even beyond the capabilities of modern AI engines, yet somehow, Micah keeps it all together with clean audits more often than not, from those who care to check.

COO

Cobus van Deventer

Cobus is a rare breed of person who is passionate, creative and entrepreneurial by nature who also has a gift for creative structure, process and discipline that has manifested in a Master’s Degree in Project Management.

Cobus is a rare breed of person who is passionate, creative and entrepreneurial by nature who also has a gift for creative structure, process and discipline that has manifested in a Master’s Degree in Project Management.

Using this combination of skills to translate a tailor-made for venture-building and design-led process that can operate at scale is Cobus’s current fixation.

Cobus and his team being “calm to pressure” through organisation, discipline and process.

Executive Director

Justin Vellacott

As an experienced IT operations manager, Justin makes sure that customers and entrepreneurs avoid costly complex project failures.

As an experienced IT operations manager, Justin makes sure that customers and entrepreneurs avoid costly complex project failures.

With hundreds of projects under the belt, Justin knows the fine art of translating customer requirements into work-needed and connects the dots to execution, curating projects with disciplines and processes that avoid stakeholder disconnects and failure.

You will get perfectly managed complex IT projects that are structured to succeed with in-flight, line-of-sight progress & performance tracking, adaptive processes and state of the art communication and coordination tools from his teams.

Executive Director

Mark Morris

Having learnt most start-up and venture-building lessons the hard way, Mark is on a mission to help entrepreneurs build innovative new technology business ventures, without losing their savings, incurring huge debt or selling their souls to raise capital.

Having learnt most start-up and venture-building lessons the hard way, Mark is on a mission to help entrepreneurs build innovative new technology business ventures, without losing their savings, incurring huge debt or selling their souls to raise capital.

His goals include discovering innovative approaches to building technology that scales easily into new business ventures, using limited resources to reduce risk and increase the chances of success.

Exploring purpose and meaning of ideas and concepts, facilitating an infinite game approach to business, creating shared consciousness amongst teams, improving work-life quality and refining business value systems are a constant in Marks thoughts.

Business Intelligence Executive

Claire Bester

Data is Claire’s thing. If fact, we often catch her talking to her data. She counters that the data is to blame because it started talking to her first!

Data is Claire’s thing. In fact, we often catch her talking to her data. She counters that the data is to blame because it started talking to her first!

No surprise then that helping data tell its stories is a passion for Claire, by collecting, organizing and visualizing data, Claire gives insights and intelligence that would otherwise be impossible to see or know.

Building modern data estates and making it easier, faster and simpler for people to work with and use their data to drive value creation is Claire’s team’s passion.

Commercial Business Analyst

Chris Ackermann

Chris is an adventurer. His passion for travel and exploration off the beaten path applies equally to the business world – he loves delving into new business ideas and working out how they can be made to work.

Chris is an adventurer.  His passion for travel and exploration off the beaten path applies equally to the business world – he loves delving into new business ideas and working out how they can be made to work.

His analytical side however compels him to ensure a solid foundation through research, and asking questions to test assumptions and conventions.  Having a sharp eye for detail helps him bring rigour to the process – translating ideas into principles and creating systemic foundations for businesses.  Underpinning that with data and financial modelling helps ensure risks are quantified and provides a framework to guide new ventures on the path to success – which gives Chris his fix.

venture builders 

venture builders 

venture builders 

technology innovators 

technology innovators 

technology innovators