It was more than five years ago that Benny Landa excited the crowds at drupa 2012 with his latest venture, Landa Digital Printing, a company focused on a new printing technology called Nanography. Since drupa 2012, there have been many rumors and stories about the Landa press and ‘if’ or ‘when’ it would ever be delivered. Since that initial introduction in 2012, I have monitored its progress and taken a close look at the unique printing technology, which has some obvious roots in one of Landa’s earlier companies.

For those of you who are not familiar with Benny Landa, he launched Indigo in 1977, unveiled the world's first digital press in 1993 and subsequently sold the company to HP in 2002. After selling Indigo to HP, Benny changed his focus to research in nanotechnology and how capturing energy from heat might be used to create low cost electricity. As a result of some of his research, he has developed many other technologies. One of those was Nano-Metallography, which was designed for metallized print embellishment producing zero waste at less than half the cost of using foil. Landa has since sold this technology to the Altana Group, along with a minority share of Landa Digital Printing. Other developments include one for more efficient drug delivery, another sold to L’Oreal for safe and more permanent hair coloring, a pigment technology partnership with BASF for automotive paint, a soon-to-be-released technology for more efficient solar panels, and a business that grows diamonds, just to name a few. He has also created a philanthropic fund for identifying and educating poverty-ridden children of all religions and races in Israel. To say he has been busy is clearly an understatement. 

With his background in print technologies and processes, Landa realized he could also design a printing process using nanotechnology. This led to the development of a digital printing process and a press using Nanography that could ultimately replace offset printing with equal or better quality and efficiency, meeting the cost bar set by offset for longer runs.