Earlier this month, EFI had celebrated the 10th anniversary of its acquisition of VUTEk and, perhaps as an anniversary present, the company made two new major acquisitions: Israel-based Matan Digital Printers and Italy’s Reggiani Macchine. The former will expand EFI’s portfolio into superwide-format printers while the latter allows the company to expand into digital textile printing. At EFI Connect last February, the company had made no secret of the fact that it saw textile printing as the next big frontier, although the exact mechanism for conquering that frontier was as yet undisclosed.

Last week, I spoke with Guy Gecht, EFI’s CEO, about these two acquisitions, and how they fit into EFI’s overall portfolio, and what they will mean for EFI’s current—and potential—customers.

The Reggiani acquisition was stimulated in part by a desire on the part of EFI’s customers to get involved in soft signage. But “textile printing” is about more than signage; digital fashion printing is also a fast-growing part of digital textile printing, although it is more prevalent in Europe—specifically Italy—than the U.S.

“The main market is industrial textiles,” said Gecht. “It’s a tremendous market and only four percent of it is digital printing. People would like to move from a very long run to on-demand, no inventory, you print what you need, you let your customers customize.”

Gecht also said that Matan had been on EFI’s radar for some time, and they had started talking to them about joining forces around the first of this year. What was attractive about Matan’s offerings was a focus on high-speed LED UV printing, a technology to which EFI has committed itself .

“In the product lineup they would be a very fast product, and with a lot of capabilities, and potentially at a lower cost than VUTEk,” he said. “With VUTEK, we focus on higher quality at production speed, but customers will have a choice. We’re giving customers great choices.”

The next step of course is to get everyone on the same page, and integrate the new companies, their products, and their customers into the EFI family. Gecht says we should look for some new announcements in the near future.

“We have an excellent team of innovators,” he said. “They are collaborating around the world, and maybe they don’t speak the same language, but the passion for inkjet, the passion for printing, is the DNA that gets everyone to very excited. Sitting in on some of the meetings I see a lot of excitement.

“I think people will be very impressed with what we bring to market.”