Vacutec was established in 1988 and it began primarily as a supplier of high vacuum and ultra high vacuum products to laboratories, throughout South Africa - hence the name Vacutec. The following years saw a consolidation and concentration on Vacutec core products.

1998 was an exciting year as it saw a sister company established in California in the USA. This company moved to New York in 2004 and has gone on to provide expertise and products for the expansion of Vacutec over many years.

In 2004 Vacutec decided to expand its portfolio. In the Vacuum division it commenced a program of custom manufacturing of high vacuum and ultra-high vacuum systems. 2005 saw the addition of ION TOF time of flight mass spectrometers and establishment of a systems division in Vacutec to handle TOF-SIMS plus the custom designed high vacuum systems. This year was particularly successful as it achieved Vacutec's first million dollar system installation at the CSIR!

Kratos XPS systems appointed Vacutec their agent in 2006 followed by MKS Instruments (gas control and mass spectrometers) in early 2008

The life science side was proud to be appointed by Caliper/Xenogen for their in vivo bioimaging systems and in early 2008 Baygene electrophoresis products were also added to the already highly successful life science portfolio which included Syngene gel documentation and Chemiluminescence systems which are the market leaders in South Africa.

In 2009 proved a good year with two In VIVO bioimaging systems being sold. Followed by the first in VIVO Xray/bioluminescence/flourescence system (in Southern Africa) being installed in 2010 in Cape Town.

2011 has been the most successful year ever. It saw the installation of a top of the line multi million Rand XPS system at Rhodes University followed by the University of the Free State placing an order for a TOF SIMS. We also received orders for our 15th Cirrus mass spectrometer.

In mid 2011 Vacutec opened a new division to concentrate on export sales into Sub Saharan Africa and we believe this will provide a significant increase to sales for the 2012 year.