I.O.R.

The company was established in 1936 as a joint-venture between the Romanian industrialists Nicolae Malaxa and Max Auschnitt, engineer Petre Carp, with participation from the French companies Optique & Précision de Levallois and Bernard-Turnne.

In 1941, when Romania entered the war alongside Nazi Germany, IOR was militarised and was tasked to produce mainly for the Romanian Army. The first military scopes were produced at this moment for what was then the standard Romanian sniper rifle, the Vz. 24. After the war, though the production continued under Soviet domination, the company maintained links to famous Western European firms such as Carl Zeiss AG, Leica, Pentacon and Schneider Kreuznach, which assisted IOR in its modernization and expansion in the 1970s. As a consequence of Romania's refusal to join the invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union ceased sharing technical information and exporting military equipment (including the newly designed SVD Dragunov). Accordingly, Romania designed the PSL rifle as a substitute for the SVD Dragunov, and IOR was tasked with developing a scope for the rifle as a replacement for the Russian PSO-1. The result was the LPS 4x6° TIP2 telescopic sight, which became the standard Romanian sniper riflescope.

The company is traded on the Bucharest Stock Exchange.

Since its founding, IOR has produced military (including scopes, binoculars, range finders) and civilian grade optics (microscopes, medical lenses, glass lenses) and associated equipment (still cameras and camera lenses, cinema projectors, dental units). Since the 1980s, the company engaged in optical electronics, lasers, metrology, and thermal vision. The company is SR EN ISO 9001 certified.

IOR optics are currently imported into the US by Valdada Optics and are marketed as "IOR-Valdada".

IOR's LPS 4x6° TIP2 scopes are commonly found on Eastern Bloc sniper rifles such as the Puşca Semiautomată cu Lunetă, and SVD Dragunov. It is also a very common optic on the US commercial market on rifles that feature a compatible side rail mount. IOR was one of the Cold War era manufacturers that survived the transition to a non communist era rather well. This was due in no small part to their close associations with Western European manufacturers and their 1970s modernization. Other manufacturers like the Russian Novosibirsk Instrument Making Plant and Belarusian Zenit company have not been as successful in entering the Western market.