Its specialities are very quick and easy setup of storefront websites, with no coding needed by the user. Underpinning this is a big emphasis on training, helping customers build up their online businesses, and integration with print workflows, MIS and automation. Inevitably, AI is making its appearance now.
The company sells worldwide, in mainly English-speaking markets – UK, US (which brings in 60%-70% of business), Australia and Canada, but is also establishing itself in mainland Europe. It now has approximately 200 customer platform licences, who are publishing 1,407 websites, accessed by 1.67million registered end-user customers. Infigo users include PSPs, educational and finance services.
Infigo employs 55 people worldwide, and since 2016 it has established a development company in Moldova that employs another 20 or so.
The company was originally based in Crawley, West Sussex, home town of founder and CEO Douglas Gibson, but after the office was shut for Covid in 2020, he relocated a few miles to Lindfield in Haywards Heath. Staff tend to work from home apart from HR and a few others, but they’ll come together weekly or monthly in the meeting rooms at Lindfield, says Chris Minn, head of global marketing.
Infigo successfully switched to staggered four-day weeks 18 months ago. “People are happy; it’s been good for business, for hiring, for stress management and keeping hold of staff,” says Gibson.
If you are curious about the name, as we were, it’s Latin for a variety of meanings, but ‘impressive’ seems to be the most appropriate, especially for print-related software.
A recent introduction has been Infigo Eco: whenever a customer creates a new storefront, it automatically messages a partner company that plants a tree, says Minn. “We’re trying to offset our carbon footprint as a software provider, so that’s something we’re quite proud of.”
What does Infigo offer?
The core product is the web-to-print platform called Infigo – this provides everything needed to get started and build storefront websites. Then there are optional modules including MegaEdit (flagship editor for document editing as well as the creation of photo-gifting products, with new 3D display option). MegaEdit opens up the system to other extensions: Designer (templates engine); Insights (an analytics reporting tool); Invent (an InDesign plug-in); and Chameleon (storefront variations generator).
The Infigo platform is primarily SaaS running on the AWS cloud with user access though web browsers.
The core product was originally called Catfish, but this was dropped in 2021 (“US customers hated it,” says Minn) and the original company name Infigo Software Ltd was shortened, so now both the company and its product are simply called Infigo.
Does Infigo charge for its services? Minn says: “There’s a fee at the beginning, because you’ve got the build and setup, that will depend on what vertical you’re building it for. And then there’s a monthly retainer fee, which covers support and hosting and everything else.”
Education and training
Infigo puts a lot of stress on customer support, training and ongoing business development. Minn says: “The primary training for customers is LMS, the learning management system. It gives the basic storefront knowledge and at the same time Infigo can help users develop in terms of getting the best out of it.
“We also launched Infigo Academy, where we have hundreds of free videos so anyone can find resources and answers to their questions. The more we produce, the fewer support tickets we have, and the happier our customers are.” Infigo also hosts regular webinars and earlier this year started a more generalised print podcast.
Emphasis on integration
A big part of Infigo’s development efforts go into integration of its web-to-print system with other print production and MIS processes, says Minn. Once links have been written, integration is easier next time. There are generic links for systems that don’t yet have them, but there is more functionality with dedicated integrations, says Minn.
Partners so far include HP, Enfocus, Hybrid Software, LabelTraxx, Tharstern, Cerm, PrintIQ and more. As dedicated links are written these are introduced as “Connect:xxxx” modules.
Infigo has worked particularly closely with HP over the years. It launched itself onto the US market in 2015 at DscoopX, the HP Indigo users’ group meeting. A year later it signed up as an HP SmartStream solutions partner, integrating into the PrintOS platform’s SiteFlow workflow and production automation.
Company development
Long-term Printweek readers may recall our coverage over the years, dating back to the company’s origins within the print software developer Bytes Software Ltd, a South African company that took over the UK Xerox reseller Xclusive Solutions in the early 2000s.
In 2006 Bytes took on Douglas Gibson, now Infigo’s CEO. After leaving school he sold fax machines, moving to Xerox reseller Xclusive Solutions to sell them, then early digital copiers that were to evolve into digital printers. After moving to EFI for a couple of years, he returned to Xclusive when it was being taken over by Bytes. “I was given a lot of money to head up the software division,” says Gibson. “We developed an early W2P system and that was Infigo.”
In 2010 he came to an agreement to leave Bytes and develop a system (the previously mentioned Catfish, in effect Infigo 2.0), through a new firm called Infigo Software. At that time there were five staff and 60 user companies. Infigo had all distribution rights and Bytes was a reseller.
In 2014, Bytes Document Solutions was acquired by Xerox reseller Xeretec. Infigo was not involved and is fully independent.
Gibson recalls that 2016 was a particularly pivotal year: “We acquired NetKandi and also became an official HP SmartStream partner. We also set up the business in Moldova.”
NetKandi was a digital marketing firm that Infigo bought to help its customers to develop their own marketing. Chris Minn was a director and moved to Infigo as marketing director. He is now head of global marketing.
Gibson was managing director of Infigo from 2010. However in May this year he handed the MD reins to Alex Bowell, who joined in 2014 and was appointed technical operations director in 2016. Gibson remains CEO.
Eastern promise
Moldova is a tiny East European country that sits between Romania and Ukraine. It became independent after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, but with few natural resources, it turned to educating people to offer technology services.
In 2016 Infigo was putting out feelers internationally for developers, encouraged by its German based CTO Michael Zauner. Gibson says: “We found a couple of young lads in Moldava who wanted to set up a new business. We decided we could support this; we could keep control but we could learn and grow and tap in. Now those guys have 15-20 people, and they are now building other SaaS solutions, and it is set to grow to a 30-40 person business in the next couple of years.” Sergiu Jardan is managing director of Infigo Moldova.
Showing off
Infigo has regularly teamed up with HP at international trade shows to create eye-catching demonstrations, including Interpak in 2017, LabelExpo in 2019 and 2023 in Brussels, at Fespa Global Print Expo in 2023 and at Printing United Expo in Las Vegas earlier this year.
Infigo runs a storefront creating personalised artwork for visitors, that is then printed and given to them. These have included personalised flexible plastic pouches for nuts and sweets in 2019 on HP’s flexible pouch-making line; and labels in 2023 for the Belgian beer maker Tony, with Hybrid Software, HP and ABG.
At Drupa 2024 Infigo set up an AI imaging application with Cerm, Hybrid and HP, with ABG and JetFX finishing, that took photographs of visitors, transformed them into “superheroes” and printed the result on a pouch or label.
Latest developments
Apart from regular updates, the past year has seen new Connect integration links, including Connect:Cerm, Connect:PrintIQ MIS and Connect:LabelTraxx (business management system for label converters), plus Connect: Switch for Enfocus’ customisable automated workflow system, which Minn says opens up a lot of automation possibilities.
Digitally printed labels (and separately, packaging converters) are currently a big growth area for Infigo users, says Minn. Backing this, it has developed ties with Fujifilm as well as HP Indigo. It used Connect:Hybrid to link to the Fujifilm Jet Press FP790 digital flexible packaging inkjet press, which it demonstrated at the launch in January.
September saw a new partnership with file conversion specialist Markzware. This lets users create products through the popular Canva design environment (with 130 million users) or rivals such as Adobe Express, and export them as PDFs which Markzware converts into editable InDesign files that can go into Infigo via its existing Invent integration.
What’s next?
For the future, Gibson is looking at internal business development and has implemented software called EOS to help organise business tasks such as meetings.
He’s also looking ahead to the pros and cons of AI. “We have to make sure we don’t just jump on the bandwagon, to be sure it adds value, adds benefit,” he says. “For printers, they need to first look at how it helps them in their business, then secondly how they can use it to automate. It’s not everything that people think it is right now, but certainly it will grow and become that over the next years.”
