Tokyo – Ricoh Company, Ltd. today announced that the company has reached an agreement to buy ColorGATE Digital Output Solutions GmbH (hereafter “ColorGATE”), a leading software provider in the printing industry with a specific competence in color management. This acquisition is designed to strengthen Ricoh’s growing industrial printing business. The transfer of shares is scheduled to complete on November 30, 2018.

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. With its extensive customer base ColorGATE is the European leader in industrial printing software. It has unique color management technology to support printing and decorating a wide variety of materials used for packaging, floor and wall coverings as well as textiles and signage. It is a leading provider of performance-optimized color management and workflow software to standardize and automate growing digital print markets including décor and textiles.

In February this year, 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”. Significantly, both are located in Europe, which is increasingly the center of incubation for industrial printing markets. This allows access to cutting-edge technology and enables increased responsiveness to market needs. The centers aim to drive marketing, strategic planning and development of business and products with Ricoh’s alliance partners worldwide.

Peter Williams, Corporate Vice President and General Manager of Commercial and Industrial Printing Business Group, Ricoh, says: “By combining ColorGATE’s proprietary software technology with our own industrial printers, Ricoh will provide solutions covering the whole printing workflow from Pre-Press to Post-Press. 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.”

Thomas Kirschner, Co-founder of ColorGATE who will continue to serve as CEO, comments: “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.”