Barco is an acronym that originally stood for Belgian American Radio COrporation. The company was founded by Lucien de Puydt to assemble radios using parts sourced from the US - hence the name. After de Puydt died in 1941, Camiel Descamps took over with the help of family members and grew the company across the world. He also diversified the company's products to include TVs, jukeboxes, and TV broadcasting equipment, and then during the 1960s, also started producing mechanical components for industrial use.

From 1979, Barco began producing projection technology and during the 1980s, started moving towards a professional market rather than producing consumer goods. During the 1990s and 2000s, the company started to explore new technologies including LCDs, LEDs, DLP and LCoS. Now, the company specialises in media and entertainment, security and monitoring, medical imaging, 3D and virtual reality, digital cinema, traffic control, broadcast and training, and simulation.