Image Recognition Integrated Systems (Iris Group), a Belgian developer of scanning technology, is to offer 56.7% of its shares for sale in an IPO that will value the company at up to $55m. Iris, formed in 1987, goes to the market at a time when it anticipates rapid growth and forecasts that 1998 revenue of $8m will rose to over $12m this year and $17m in 2000.
Offering a range of products ranging from handheld scanners to image recognition software that other developers can integrate into their own applications, Iris’ background in language-fluent Belgium enables it to boast that its software is capable of operating in 55 different tongues.
Although it competes with companies such as Xerox Corp, Iris claims to be the largest independent operator and has partnerships with companies such as Hewlett Packard, Acer, Agfa, and Fujitsu.
Up to 588,221 new shares and 265,498 existing shares will be on offer and the initial price range is between 29.5 euros ($31.4) to 34 euros ($36.2). Of the new capital raised, up to $4m will be used to finance existing growth while $13.2 will be available for strategic acquisitions.
Apart from its core technologies, Iris has started dabbling in other areas. It offers PageCharmer, a multimedia package that offers real-time interactive applet control and WinFlow and MacFlow, a tool for creating flowcharts, organization charts and other kinds of charts and diagrams.
Belgian speech recognition company Lernout and Hauspie is one of the Iris backers and will retain a 4.2% stake in the company after the IPO.
