EFI founder Efraim ‘Efi’ Arazi has died. The industry giant passed away on his 76th birthday on Sunday, 14 April.
Arazi created his namesake company in 1988 after a pioneering 20-year career as the founder, president and CEO of Israeli company Scitex Corporation. He served as chairman, president and CEO of Electronics for Imaging (EFI) from 1988 until 1994, guiding the business from modest beginnings, with 18 employees in North Beach, San Francisco. Under his leadership and technical guidance, EFI launched Fiery, the industry's first colour server, in 1991. Arazi completed an initial public offering for EFI in 1992. In 1994, ‘Fortune’ magazine named EFI the nation's fastest-growing public company.
"We are all deeply saddened by the passing of our founder and one of the most influential leaders in the history of our industry, and we send our sympathies and condolences to Efi's family," said Guy Gecht, current CEO of EFI. "Though no longer with us, Efi's spirit of entrepreneurship, brilliant creativity and love of innovation will always remain at EFI."
Arazi is widely considered to be the father of Israel's high-tech industry for his role with Scitex. In the late 1960s, he also worked with NASA while studying at MIT, developing the camera used to broadcast the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969.
Today, Arazi's original EFI Fiery product line is well renowned with more than 20 million Fiery users worldwide and the company has an annual revenue of over $652 million.