Acumen Lands $5M in VC

It’s been quite a year for Acumen Holdings, the Fayetteville startup co-founded and run by a doctor and recently funded to the tune of $5 million.

John James completed his residency in family practice medicine six years ago, helped launch a clinic in Farmington, and then promptly gave up his medical practice to pursue his true love, entrepreneurship.

A serial entrepreneur since the age of 7, when in 1981 he wrote his first computer program, James founded the e-commerce firm Acumen Holdings with Terry Turpin, an attorney by trade with previous startup experience who serves as the firm’s COO.

From those humble beginnings in 2009, Acumen has grown to 36 employees and now encompasses more than 200 partner brands, including Carhartt, Under Armour, Fisher-Price, Dickies, Timberland and Wrangler, all sold through its numerous consumer sites such as TrailsEdge.com (outdoor wear), ToughWeld.com (work wear), ScrubShopper.com (nursing scrubs) and BabyHabit.com (baby gear).

This latest round of funding, which comes courtesy of several investors, will enable the firm to add 20 online stores in the next two years and further expand its work force, James said. Those investors include the nationally significant venture capital firm Noro-Moseley Partners of Atlanta, which is making its first investment in Arkansas; BLH Ventures of Atlanta and Birmingham, Ala.; and Gravity Ventures Arkansas.

In addition, Acumen received investment support from the new Arkansas Risk Capital Matching Fund, a program of the Arkansas Development Finance Authority, and state tax credits of 33.3 percent for its investors.

James plans to take Acumen public soon, all the while staying put in Northwest Arkansas and continuing to grow.

“This round of equity investment will allow us to grow even faster,” James said. “The infusion of capital will help us create dozens of high-paying technology jobs in Northwest Arkansas. It will create jobs immediately and place us on solid ground as we work to create a sustainable, growing enterprise that will benefit the state for years to come.”

James, whose Doctorpreneur blog appears in the INOV8 forum at InnovateArkansas.org, said the funding was the result of his firm’s presentation at the 2010 Arkansas Venture Forum in September. The forum, presented by Arkansas Capital Corp., annually brings together several of the state’s most promising ventures to present before an audience of investors, some national in scope.

James and his business partners at Acumen actually had to be coerced – dragged “kicking and screaming,” James said – into presenting by the folks at Innovate Arkansas.

“We weren’t sure if we actually needed additional capital, and didn’t think we were a very appealing venture capital investment given our small size and short track record,” James said.

The funding also will enable Acumen to expand into more retail categories and to outfit an automated fulfillment facility. James believes the growth of online retail will continue to explode and that Acumen’s innovative data-driven approach will enable it to continue riding that wave.

The wave actually began for James at an early age. After writing that computer program at 7, he started what became a nationally recognized computer bulletin-board system out of his parent’s bedroom in 1989. 

“I’ve been a computer geek my whole life,” he said.

In 1995, while a student at the University of Arkansas, he started his first business – selling quiz bowl questions through direct mail.  “To support this business, I built my first e-commerce website,” he said. “It was terrible, but hey, it was 1995, I got lucky and it worked.”

For James, it continues to work.