EFI develops ceramic inkjet interests with Jettable investment

Tag : Ceramic Colour

EFI has completed an investment in ceramic inkjet specialistJettable.
The Israeli company develops inks and pigments for use on ceramicsubstrates and has built a print engine that can compensate for thedifferent colours and porous and non-porous properties of ceramicmaterials, in order to ensure the widest colour gamut achievable.

EFI has teamed up with Italian ceramic paint and varnish companySicer for a $6.5m (£3.26m) funding of the company, which hasalready garnered $1.6m in earlier rounds of funding since itsinception in 2003.

EFI, which also owns Vutek, said the cash injection would provideequity to progress development of a high-speed single-pass inkjetpress for ceramic tiles.

Jettable is already working with Kornit, a company in a similarfield and in which EFI also has an investment, on a device for thespeciality tile decoration market.

It is hoped the resulting products will replace the current methodsof printing on ceramics – screen and roller printing –with a far less wasteful method, and one which can be used for bothshort-run and in-line purposes.

"We are pleased that EFI has identified our breakthrough technologyas a true asset to their best-in-class product offering. We aredelighted to join forces with EFI – our vision forindustry-leading digital inkjet technologies can now fully berealised," said Jettable director and founder Warren Green.