Formed in 2022 after founders Peter Westbrook, Dan Westbrook, and Lisa Cloete’s previous employer went into liquidation, Tri Signs was set up “around the kitchen table” before finding a workshop, and later its new home in 2024.

October’s installation of a 2.5m-wide Veloblade Nexus, made alongside an Easymount Hybrid laminator, was a “gamechanger” for the rapidly expanding firm, which posted around 40% growth to £720,000 in its year to January 2025.

“Obviously you can’t invest in all the machinery on day one of the startup, so we’ve been having to outsource for folding trays, raised letters, and that kind of thing,” Cloete told Printweek.

“We have very short lead times. It’s a requirement from our customers, and having to use a third party for anything causes us a major headache, because then you’re working to their lead times – not the lead times you want to give to your clients. This way, we’re taking it in our own hands.”

Cloete added the Veloblade had made a “massive difference” already, helping the firm take on new work as well as run existing jobs from its Canon Colorado 1640 roll-to-roll printer and Roland VersaUV LEC2 direct-to-object UV printer.

The firm primarily serves the housing market, producing and installing development signage such as stack signs, hoardings, marketing suites, and health and safety signage across most of the UK, from their base in Hampshire.

As it has expanded, it has slowly managed to take on former colleagues from the founders’ previous employer, and now boasts a team of eight. One of these eight had spent the intervening years with another signage company – and had recommended Tri Signs pick up a digital cutter after working with one himself.

“It was a very self-explanatory process, and with half a day’s training, we were good to go – obviously they had offered more than half a day, but it wasn’t a complicated transition for us,” Cloete said.