In 1986 PACE Limited who designed and manufactured computer peripherals recruited Tony Powell, a founding Director of PaceSoft, to provide software support for shock and vibration analysis software. Tony was rapidly promoted to a Director of PACE Limited and in 1987 PaceSoft Limited was formed as a subsidiary of PACE Limited with Tony leading the software quality control function. At the same time Chris Tindall was asked by PCIL if he could design some software for a BOCM contract to control the production of animal feed. Chris brought to PaceSoft a military level software development environment and testing from his development experience at Plessey Communications in RLT2, Coral and ADA for defence applications.

PaceSoft Limited went independent in 1993 with the Anamatrix scheduling product. Using Anamatrix PaceSoft developed a transporter system for 3 cranes running on a track moving production parts through cleaning, spraying and stoving processes. The old method was fixed sequence with no flexibility. The system was designed primarily for 'jobbing' contractors running a mix of parts. The system is designed to be very flexible allowing the operator to rapidly reprogram the operations and sequences.

With Anamatrix encompassing leading edge technologies including fuzzy logic, plant control for multiple processes, workflow optimisation, real time control, embedded applications and custom controllers PaceSofts' client base rapidly expanded.