Formed by industry veterans Esmeralda Desart and Shmulik Lagziel, Fespa was the firm's first exhibition outing and it used it to launch a range of solvent inks for the Seiko ColorPainter 64s, which it claimed were the first third-party inks available for the machine.

The Belgian firm also launched a range of solvent inks for the Mimaki JV3 and revealed plans to introduce a range of UV-curable ink-jet inks suitable for large-format UV flatbed and roll-to-roll machines from Nur, Zund and Durst later this year.

The firm currently sells direct in the UK, but is poised to announce a dealer for the solvent products for smaller machines such as the Seiko and the Mimaki. It will retain a direct sales team to serve customers with super-wide and grand-format machines in the UK, which include Vertical Vision in Hungerford, Cestrian in Stockport and Gardners in Cardiff.

Joint managing director Desart claimed that wide-format customers could save 50% when compared to OEM inks while super-wide customers could save 35-40%.

"For us there is a lot of money in the smaller machines," she said. "Wide-format is a huge market, and you feel like you are really helping."

Story by Barney Cox