Printing without ink cartridges is no more an outlandish concept.
While the print industry has been working long to invent a successful inkless printer, only recently, a Delft-based startup, Tocano has been able to come up with a successful and sustainable technology called – Inkless.
Inkless: All you need to know
To dig in further, they have invented a technology in which infra-red laser rays are used to softly burn paper, printing black carbon dots. Basically, Inkless enables black and white printing without cartridges or toners.
This technology of inkless printing was initially invented by an Indian graduate, Venkatesh Chandrasekar, at the University of Technology in Delft, Netherlands. Together with fellow student Van der Veen, they both teamed up to form Tocano. The revolutionary startup is also backed by the famous business incubator, Yes!Delft.
Now as per the latest development, Inkless has raised a sum of €1 million in its latest investment round. This investment is made by a group of Angel Investors. The current investment amount will help the company to reach a competitive printing performance. Following which, the company will work on the development of the product.
Commenting on the development, Arnaud van der Veen, Co-founder/CEO of Inkless said, “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.”
For manufacturing the product, the startup has planned next financing round for the end of 2018. “This next round will either be financed by strategic partners or Venture Capitalists. The first meetings have already taken place,” said Van der Veen in a company press release.
The company plans to introduce the first inkless printer for the packaging and labelling market. Arnaud van der Veen, notes, “The printing of barcodes, shelf life data and product codes on packages and on the labels will form the ideal market for us to start with. As this market is currently dominated by black-white printing and also because this market will highly 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.”
Currently, Inkless is composing a customer file, such that the product will perfectly fit the needs of the users. “We are looking for innovative-thinking companies that print lots of packages and/or print labels, and that find it important that their company processes are sustainable,” added Van der Veen.
A big threat to print market giants?
Inkless printing has the advantage of not using any ink, cartridges or any other consumables to print on packages or labels. The technology will not require any special thermal coatings. Further, Inkless claims to be cost efficient, and will also contribute to the green environment. The best part! The inkless printer doesn’t have to be refilled.
With so many benefits, Inkless surely could create market waves and give sleepless nights to the print tech giants including HP, Ricoh, Canon, Toshiba and more. Adding to that, the company plans to take baby steps and first enter the packages and labels print market.
Following that, they want to invent a revolutionary technology which will be able to merge into production printers, office printers, consumer printers and receipt printers. A technology which can offer many advantages like a cheaper and more sustainable printing method with no hassle of ink, cartridges or toner.
Van der Veen opines, “I always compare this to the transition from the analog 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.”
Let’s wait and watch to witness how the final product comes out to be.
Meanwhile, you can take a look at the video below to know how the technology exactly works.
For more updates on Inkless, stay tuned to Silicon Canals.
