Ackama's story
Ackama started in 2010 to design technology that makes a difference. Today, we deliver impact across Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific.
Ackama started in 2010 to design technology that makes a difference. Today, we deliver impact across Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific.
Ackama was established in September 2010, when Breccan McLeod-Lundy set himself up in Wellington as an independent contractor and web developer. He was eager and enthusiastic to do great work and so he started operating under the name Rabid Technologies. At a similar time Squareweave was founded by Will Dayble and Luke Giuliani in Melbourne when they pooled their money into an apartment in Fitzroy, invested in an espresso machine and began bringing software and technology to social enterprise communities.
Josh Forde joined Breccan in the earliest days through the Enspiral network (a network of geeks building socially responsible ventures) helping to grow more ambitious solutions and a wider team of professionals. The first staff member was hired in early 2012.
All four founders believe that technology can make the world a better place as systems built on the back of technology impact huge numbers of people. This is the principle on which the company still operates – focusing on impact and working for long-term outcomes.
In New Zealand early success was achieved with the product development team when they launched PledgeMe, New Zealand’s best crowdfunding and campaign team. Through partnerships both with clients and collaborators we grew our agile capabilities, brought onboard wonderful developers, designers and scrum masters and built a great local reputation.
2018 was a big year for the company, with the merger of the Australian and New Zealand companies and the change of name to Ackama for the New Zealand company. The name reflects that fact that we work on large digital ecosystems, and given that nature is the largest ecosystem in the world we wanted a name that came from nature. Ackama, or Makamaka, is a small bushy tree with white flowers and red seeds. A native of New Zealand, found north of Whangārei.
Squareweave initially stayed using its existing brand due to its great reputation in the marketplace. Over the following years our practices and teams became more and more aligned until the time felt right to move under the single Ackama brand, recognising that we operate as one company across two countries, delivering projects around the world. This has allowed both teams to grow – we have broadened the services we offer and have a steady flow of great projects with meaningful challenges.
We currently work with corporate and Government clients to build better systems and help them adopt practices like Agile, DevOps and User Experience. We have always worked with startups, social good and charitable organisations to improve their technology capabilities, and will continue to do so.
Alongside this we’ve steadily built our IP, both by taking stakes in startups and keeping a license to many of the systems we’ve built. This allows us to steadily become more productive as we grow and leverage pre-built systems to help us enter new markets.
Additionally our profile with government has increased, increasing our appetite to tackle bigger challenges and projects.
In 2021, Squareweave was rebranded to Ackama, recognising that we operate as one business group. We start the year excited to engage with our clients and communities and we have great projects to share with you.
Squareweave is now Ackama.
We've merged with New Zealand company Ackama!
We're excited to be working with our Kiwi colleagues to deliver ambitious, purposeful digital products on both sides of the Tasman.
Common Code is now part of Ackama.
We’re now part of Ackama, delivering purposeful technology across the Asia-Pacific.
Together, we’re creating impact across energy, government, international development, and beyond. Delivering pragmatic, innovative solutions where they matter most.