Ricoh Company today announced it has reached an agreement to buy ColorGATE Digital Output Solutions GmbH, a colour management software provider in the printing industry.
Founded in 1997, ColorGATE based in Hannover, Germany, has been supporting the printing industry for over 20 years by providing software for the wide format and industrial printing sectors. The company explains it has unique colour management technology to support printing and decorating a variety of materials used for packaging, floor and wall coverings as well as textiles and signage, noting that it offers performance-optimized colour management and workflow software to standardize and automate growing digital print markets including décor and textiles.
This past February Ricoh announced its growth strategy plan, Ricoh Ignite, which sets out its intention to reinforce its value offering by expanding its printing technology portfolio. The investment in ColorGATE is the latest part of this plan.
To enhance its industrial printing business, Ricoh recently established a Global IP Technology Center and a Global IP Marketing Center.
“By combining ColorGATE’s proprietary software technology with our own industrial printers, Ricoh will provide solutions covering the whole printing workflow from prepress to post-press,” Peter Williams, Corporate Vice President and General Manager of Commercial and Industrial Printing Business Group, Ricoh, says. “This acquisition will enable ColorGATE to expand its industrial printing business and global presence as together we become better able to support our customers to accelerate their transition from analogue to digital based production.”
“We are delighted to have been selected by Ricoh to contribute to this strong future growth strategy whilst we continue to serve our established customer base, OEM partners and reseller channel,” adds Thomas Kirschner, Co-founder of ColorGATE who will continue to serve as CEO.
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