Inkless, the TU Delft spinout that enables black and white printing without cartridges or toners, has just raised a sum of €1 million in its latest investment round with a group of Dutch business angels.
Founded in 2015, Inkless invented a printing technology which enables to print on normal paper types without the need of any consumables.
Arnaud van der Veen, Co-founder and CEO of Inkless, stated: “With this money we can make our technology ‘development-ready’, which means that we can meet the required quality and speed performance requirements so that we can begin with the development of our first product.”
This first inkless printer will be launched in the market of Packaging and Labelling. The printing of barcodes, shelf life data and product codes on packages and on the labels will form the ideal market for inkles to start in. The market is currently being dominated by black-white printing and it will profit from the growth of online retail. More and more packages are being shipped and all of these have to be provided with printed text and barcodes. At this moment, Inkless is composing a customer file, such that the product will perfectly fit the needs of the users.
Inkless printing has the advantage that no ink, cartridges or other consumables are needed to print on packages or labels. There is also no need any more for special thermal coatings. Besides the cost savings Inkless also provides strong environmental benefits. Next to that, the printer doesn’t have to be refilled.
Van der Veen explains: “I always compare this to the transition from the analogue camera to the digital camera. Suddenly people were able to make unlimited photos and it was not needed to replace the films. Likewise, with our printing solutions, refill and replacement of ink and consumables will not be needed.”
After focusing on printing of packages and labels inkless plans to make the technology accessible for production printers, office printers, consumer printers and receipt printers. In all these market inkles could offer the same advantages – a cheaper and more sustainable printer without any hassle with ink, cartridges or toners.
The current investment amount will serve to reach a competitive printing performance. After this, the product still has to be made. For this reason the preparations for the next financing round, which is planned for the end of 2018, have already started.
