Optowl: Spin-off continues Ricoh lens business under new name
Ricoh is spinning off its lens business. It will be continued by Optowl with immediate effect. The brand name will also change from mid-2026.
The company will continue to sell Ricoh lenses under the "Optowl" brand. The former representative of Ricoh's machine vision business in Europe will now operate as Optowl Co, Ltd, German Branch.
Optowl's roots go back to Cosmicar, founded in 1959, which became Pentax in 2000 and Ricoh in 2012. Although the company structures and brand names have changed, the decades of experience in optical development and precision manufacturing have remained. Optowl will continue this tradition as an independent company, retaining the existing production facilities and replacing the Ricoh brand name with Optowl from mid-2026.
"Building on our heritage, Optowl aims to add value to the world through the use of light," says Hiroshi Takemoto, President and CEO of Optowl.
Optics and owl: lenses from Hanamaki
The brand name "Optowl" is made up of the English words "optics" and "owl". The owl stands both as a symbol for outstanding visual performance and as a reference to the heraldic animal of the Japanese city of Hanamaki, where Optowl's headquarters are located.
The company offers optical solutions for the automotive industry, projector manufacturers and industrial automation. Optowl's machine vision lens portfolio is designed for industrial applications. The manufacturer will continue to contribute to further optimizing image quality in various application areas through innovations such as the floating focus mechanism and Meta-Lens technology.
