Scitex and EFI founder Efi Arazi dies at 76

Digital pre-press and print pioneer Efi Arazi, founder of both Scitex and Electronics for Imaging (EFI) and father of Israel's high-tech industry, has passed away, aged 76.

Arazi, whose first print technology firm Scitex exploded onto the scene at Drupa 1982 , was both a technological genius and a charasmatic and highly successful entrepreneur.

Scitex, which was Israel's first high-tech firm, was responsible for creating and leading the digital colour pre-press market in the 1980s following the launch of its Response system at the GEC exhibition in Milan in 1979.

Arazi left Scitex in 1988 and founded EFI the following year. EFI launched the industry's first colour server, EFI Fiery, in 1991 and in 1994 was featured in Fortune magazine as the fastest growing US public company (just two years after its IPO).

EFI entered the wide-format sector in 1996 with the launch of the Fiery XJ-W and launched its first workflow, Oneflow, in 2002.

Arazi was most recently chairman of Israeli firm SeeRun, which developed a new technology to monitor and manage business processes.