Early history

Indigo was the name of the company originally founded by Benny Landa in 1977. Landa, known as "the father of digital offset color printing," was born in Poland to post-World War II Jewish refugee parents, who later immigrated to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.^[2]

The early years of Indigo were focused primarily on research and development. One of the earliest developments was a sheet cassette for copiers and other copier and printing-related equipment. The company's first product would be a digital plotter/duplicator, bringing the tiny company (its 1991 sales totaled less than US$5 million, generating a profit of $440,000) head-to-head with such industry giants as Xerox and Canon.^[3]

The early 1990s brought a significant change in the company. In 1993, Indigo launched the E-Print 1000 at the IPEX trade show. The E-Print 1000 eliminated the expense and labor of the plate-printing setup process by printing directly from a computer file, thereby simultaneously enabling inexpensive short-run color printing. Images not only could be readily changed, they could be changed from page to page, requiring neither additional setup nor pauses in the print run. This was made possible by the Liquid Electrophotographic (LEP) process, which employed a high-speed laser scanner, along with a drum-shaped photoreceptor and charged, liquid toner (composed of pigment, resin, and carrier fluid) to produce the image.

In 1994 Indigo had an initial public offering on the NASDAQ stock exchange, selling 52 million shares at $20 per share and raising $100 million.

At the drupa trade show in 1995, Indigo launched another product: the Omnius press. Whereas E-Print focused on medium-volume single-sheet printing, Omnius brought digital printing to a variety of surfaces, including plastic, cardboard, film, and, especially, cans, bottles, and other packaging surfaces. Omnius was the precursor of then became Indigo's portfolio of labels and packaging presses.

At the end of 1995, Indigo sales did not reach the expected levels, and the company had to downsize. Despite a rise in revenues to $165 million, the company posted its fourth year of losses, of about $40 million. However, George Soros and other investors still believed in the company's potential and increased his investment to 30 percent of Indigo's shares by 1997. By 1998, the company improved its product reliability and performance, and its revenues passed the $200 million mark for the first time.^[3]

Hewlett-Packard offices in Ness Ziona

HP Acquisition

Starting in 1998, the Hewlett-Packard company began an evaluation of Indigo's technology and found it to be a superior fit to digital printing in commercial uses. In 2000, Hewlett-Packard made a $100m investment in Indigo, buying 14.8 million of Indigo's common shares, which represented 13.4 percent of the company's outstanding shares.^[4] On September 6, 2001, HP announced that it would acquire the remaining outstanding shares of Indigo N.V. (NASDAQ: INDG) for approximately $629 million in HP common stock and a potential future cash payment of up to $253 million contingent upon Indigo's achievement of long-term revenue goals, for an aggregate potential payment of up to $882 million.^[5]

In the following years, HP continued to invest in Israel-based graphic arts companies, acquiring Scitex Vision^[6] in 2005 and Nur Macroprinters in 2007.^[7] The combined presence of other employees of HP in Israel (which includes not only employees of the Indigo division, but also of Scitex and Israeli's divisions of HP Labs made HP the second-largest foreign employer after Intel.^[8]

Key milestones

Under the ownership of HP, Indigo developed and grew to become a world leader in the digital print industry. In 2002 they announced the first product developed jointly with staff drawn from HP: the HP Indigo 5000, which was the first model of their second generation of presses (known as "Series 2"). Other products belonging to Series 2 included the roll-fed ws4000 series and the sheetfed 5000 series (which included models such as the Indigo 5500, 5600 and the HP Indigo 5900) as well as the entry-level 3000 series. The last Series 2 press was manufactured in 2018.

Customers

Customers of HP Indigo solutions include commercial printers, photo specialty printers, as well as label, flexible packaging and folding-carton converters. They use Indigo presses to print a wide variety of applications including marketing collateral, photo albums, books, labels, heat-shrinkable sleeves (shrink sleeves) folding cartons, flexible packaging, direct mailers, manuals, and specialty jobs.^[16]

Indigo customers include some of the largest names in both the commercial print world, such as Cimpress,^[17] Shutterfly, and Consolidated Graphics (now part of RR Donnelley),^[18] as well as in the labels and packaging print industry, such as CCL Industries and large digital newcomers such as ePac Flexible Packaging. However, most of its customer base is made up of a large variety of small and medium-sized commercial print-service providers.

Notable deals from recent years include

• A deal with Cimpress for "circa 20" next-generation Indigo presses, announced at drupa 2016.^[19]
• The declaration of Shutterfly in 2016 and 2017 to purchase some 45 HP Indigo presses, replacing competitive equipment.^[20]
• The largest packaging deal to date signed with ePac Flexibles in 2018^[21]

The independent user's group of Indigo and HP Graphic Arts solutions was founded in 2005. By 2015, it had reached over 7000 users, including owners and technical personnel.^[22] Dscoop membership open to HP Graphic Arts users throughout the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific and Japan.

Manufacturing

HP Indigo uses a proprietary, patented technology and a business model that sells both presses and their consumables, as well as services. The presses are assembled in a dedicated facility in HP's Kiryat Gat campus, and the inks are manufactured at both Kiryat Gat, Israel, and TUAS, Singapore.

In 2004 HP made a 100 million shekel investment in a new production site in Kiryat Gat to manufacture HP Indigo ElectroInk.^[23] There is a sister facility in Singapore that also manufactures Indigo ElectroInk.

In 2007, an adjacent hardware center was opened in Kiryat Gat. This facility assembles frames, feeders, and other components with imaging engines into finished presses, and also serves as the site for manufacturing other operator-replaceable consumables.

In late 2012, HP Indigo inaugurated a second ink plant in Kiryat Gat, which focuses on the manufacturing of ElectroInk for the fourth generation family of presses such as the Indigo 12000, Indigo 20000 and Indigo 30000. This 118,000 square feet facility was the first non-residential building in the country, and the first HP manufacturing facility worldwide, to be certified as meeting the LEED Silver environmental standard.^[24]

In 2014, HP announced that it would expand its ElectroInk manufacturing plant in TUAS, Singapore, by 10 thousand square meters, in 2015.^[25]