I.R.I.S. was created by Pierre De Muelenaere in April 1987 to commercialize the results of his PhD thesis at the Université Catholique de Louvain. The first product of the company Texiris 1.0 was a commercial version of the prototype designed at the University and was a revolutionary OCR system, based on a dedicated hardware board and a recognition software that could install on an IBM PC.

Over the years, the university spin-off has become an international leader in the fields of Intelligent Document Recognition, Document Management and complex large scale IT projects.

• I.R.I.S. licenses its various technologies to major companies such as HP, Kodak, Samsung, Adobe,..
• It distributes a comprehensive range of products in more than 50 countries.
• It has developed an installed base of more than 900 very large customers.

The company is listed on the stock market since 1999. It has been constantly profitable since 1991. The revenue in 2006 was €86 millions and the staff is 400 people located at 5 different locations.