sixth-generation of presses. The first press using LEPx, it prints at 120 linear meters per minute, and is designed to have up to 12 ink stations on press. History Early history Indigo was the name of the company originally founded by Benny Landa in 1977. Landa, known as "the father of digital offset color printing," was born in Poland to post-World War II Jewish refugee parents, who later immigrated to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The early years of Indigo were focused primarily on research and development. One of the earliest developments was a sheet cassette for copiers and other copier and printing-related equipment. The company's first product would be a digital plotter/duplicator, bringing the tiny company (its 1991 sales totaled less than US$5 million, generating a profit of $440,000) head-to-head with such industry giants as Xerox and Canon. The early 1990s brought a significant change in the company. In 1993, Indigo launched the E-Print 1000 at the IPEX trade show. The E-Print 1000 eliminated the expense and labor of the plate-printing setup process by printing directly from a computer file, thereby simultaneously enabling inexpensive short-run color printing. Images not only could be readily changed, they could be changed from page to page, requiring neither additional setup nor pauses in the print run. This was made possible by the Liquid Electrophotographic (LEP) process, which employed a high-speed laser scanner, along with a drum-shaped photoreceptor and charged, liquid toner (composed of pigment, resin, and carrier fluid) to produce the image. In 1994 Indigo had an initial public offering on the NASDAQ stock exchange, selling 52 million shares at $20 per share and raising $100 million. At the drupa trade show in 1995, Indigo launched another product: the Omnius press. Whereas E-Print focused on medium-volume single-sheet printing, Omnius brought digital printing to a variety of surfaces, including plastic, cardboard, film, and, especially, cans, bottles, and other packaging surfaces. Omnius was the precursor of then became Indigo's portfolio of labels and packaging presses. At the end of 1995, Indigo sales did not reach the expected levels, and the company had to downsize. Despite a rise in revenues to $165 million, the company posted its fourth year of losses, of about $40 million. However, George Soros and other investors still believed in the company’s potential and increased his investment to 30 percent of Indigo's shares by 1997. By 1998, the company improved its product reliability and