Benny Landa has secured a further US$300m cash injection into his nanographic print manufacturing business Landa Digital Printing, with German entrepreneur Susanne Klatten tripling her original US$100m investment, made in 2014.
Klatten’s US$300m investment, made through her Altana chemicals company and her SKion private fund, gives her a 46 per cent stake in the business, with Landa himself holding the majority 54 per cent. Reports in Israeli media value the business at $US1.8bn.
The Israeli manufacturer says it will use the latest cash injection to finance the expansion of its infrastructure and manufacturing capabilities, as well as its continuing R&D and market development.
Landa says its nano presses which uses tiny droplets of ink will have the quality of offset, the speed of offset and be able to print on offset stocks, but with all the benefits of digital, primarily no makeready and the ability to print variable data.
[Related: Modridge cries foul over Landa ban]
Landa first launched the nanographic concept six years at drupa 2012, and saw some 400 printers, including several Australian companies, stump up $10,000 for a place in the queue.
Since then progress has been slower than expected as the company has attempted to conquer the myriad obstacles in physics and chemistry, but the first beta presses – the S10 single sided carton printing systems – are now running, one in Israel, one in Germany.
Heidelberg in the meantime has launched a digital B1 single sided carton press, the Primefire, which uses Fujifilm inkjet heads. Other developers are also running large single-sided digital carton presses, including EFI with its Nozomi, as well as Durst.
This year marks a quarter of a century since the launch of digital printing, with the Landa Indigo and the Xeikon launched at Ipex 1993. Landa went on to sell Indigo to HP 15 years ago for an eye-watering $870m.
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