Esko, formerly called EskoArtwork, is a graphic arts company producing prepresssoftware and hardware for the packaging and labels, sign and display and publishing industries.[2] Esko is headquartered in Ghent, Belgium and is a subsidiary of Veralto Corporation.[3]
Esko was the result of a merger between Barco Graphics and Purup-Eskofot A/S in 2001.[4] The merged company was called Esko-Graphics but was renamed Esko in 2006. In the fall of 2005, Esko became fully owned by Axcel, a Danish private financial company.[5]
In August 2007 Esko announced that it was 'joining forces' [6] with Artwork Systems Group NV (AWS), its chief competitor in the packaging prepress market.[7] Esko initially bought 76.69% of AWS shares for €196 million.[8] Enfocus, a brand of PDF pre-flighting and workflow software originally acquired by Artwork Systems in 2000, became a subsidiary of the combined EskoArtwork company.[9]
Reflecting the merger, Esko changed its name to EskoArtwork. It also introduced a new logo, though it is visually very close to the Esko original.
In January 2011, 100% of EskoArtwork shares have been transferred to Danaher.[10] In January 2012, the name changed back to Esko, the logo was also updated. Esko acquired CAPE Systems[11] (a palletization software vendor) in 2013, MediaBeacon[12] (aDigital Asset Management vendor) in 2015 and Blue Software, LLC[13] (a label and artwork management software vendor) in 2018. At the end of September 2023, Danaher spun-off its Environmental and Applied Solutions segment as Veralto Corporation.[14]
