The use of inkjet printing is rapidly growing in the textile market. Where inkjet was once used only for prototyping and very short run jobs, today digital printing has made significant inroads in soft signage, and the crossover point for large-scale production is increasing all the time.
 
Seeing this growth, Electronics For Imaging, Inc. (EFI) has made a major move into the digital textile space with its July 1, 2015 acquisition of Reggiani Macchine, a Bergamo, Italy-based water-based inks industrial inkjet print specialist with customers in more than 120 countries. The new subsidiary will be branded as EFI Reggiani.
 
“This acquisition gives EFI an immediate leadership position in one of the world’s largest industries undergoing the transformation from analog printing to digital,” said EFI CEO Guy Gecht. “The textile printing market is just beginning that transition, which will enable manufacturers to shift from long-run to on-demand manufacturing, responding to the increasing demands of short runs and customizations.”
 
EFI will repay $22.6 million of Reggiani’s debt, pay the former Reggiani shareholders up to $30.8 million in cash, and issue the former Reggiani shareholders up to $30.8 million of EFI stock, and will pay up to $56.2 million over as long as the next 30 months based on the achievement of revenue and profitability targets by the EFI Reggiani business. Ambrogio Caccia Dominioni, a former Reggiani shareholder, will become managing director of EFI Reggiani.
 
Mike Wozny, senior product manager, EFI, noted that there is tremendous growth in the digital textile field.
 
“For the past five years, we have seen tremendous capacity for digital printing coming online in textiles,” Wozny said. “Digital’s advantages are significant, whether it is environmental issues, time to market or reduction in inventory. There are mainstream designs that are now hitting the market right now, not just prototypes anymore. For some customers, the crossover barrier is probably close to 10,000 units now.”
 
One market where digital printing has done well for the past decade is soft signage, and Wozny said that EFI’s interest in the digital textile segment was partly driven by its soft signage customers.
 
“EFI has 100 installations alone for soft signage, and when you are in that market, you get pulled into traditional textiles by your customers,” Wozny said. “EFI started looking at adjacent markets.
 
“The textile market is 10 times the size of the graphics segment, and less than 10% is printed digitally,” he added. “This is mostly a whole new segment for us. We can take a subset of the EFI Reggiani line and bring it to our soft signage customers, and as a result, have three new products that the market hasn’t seen.”
 
Wozny noted that Reggiani is well respected for its quality.
 
“Reggiani is extremely high quality with huge productivity,” Wozny said. “Reggiani printers can produce 8,000 square feet an hour and are strategically positioned from a pruce standpoint to drive the conversion to digital.”
 
EFI’s move into the inkjet textile market is similar to its 2012 acquisition of Cretaprint, which paved EFI’s entry into the growing ceramic printing field.
 
“We’ve did this in the ceramic market when we added Cretaprint,” Wozny said. “This is a good model for Reggiani. We can leverage our hardware, electronics and software knowledge, and as a leading industrial ink manufacturer, we are always working on inks. We are now seeing good penetration in the ceramic market with our EFI inks.
 
“EFI has been investing 20% of sales into R&D and with two centers of excellence, we’ve got a huge opportunity to leverage our investments into R&D,” Wozny added. “Ultimately, Reggiani’s customers will benefit from having a company with $300 million in the bank and a long-term perspective and develops new technology. They can look and see what VUTEk was 10 years ago and where we are today.”
 
Wozny anticipates excellent growth for digital printing in the textile market.
 
“We are targeting the clothing and industrial markets, which are still in its infancy,” he said. “We anticipate double-digit growth for many years. Digital printing for textiles is still in its infancy, and we are extremely excited about the opportunities.”