EIF IN
SLOVENIA
Investing in the future of Slovenian SMEs
Small and medium-size enterprises are the heart of the Slovenian economy.
Representing 99% of all businesses and more than two thirds of the workforce, Slovenia's 164,000 SMEs are responsible for driving innovation as well as spurring on growth, and their daily routine is what ensures the competitiveness of the Slovenian economy. But to do that, they often need finance.
At the same time, as the smallest actors in the economy, they are often the hardest hit when the economy encounters turbulence, which is why it is so crucial for them to have financial options in order to maintain and eventually grow their businesses.
At the EIF, our mission is to improve access to finance for small businesses across the EU. In Slovenia, we have been supporting SMEs using a broad range of instruments, including many tailored to the needs of the Slovenian market and designed with the Slovenian government and local authorities.
As a result, we've been able to support close to 8,000 Slovenian businesses, ranging from companies specialising in cooling components for computers and data centres, online education for medical professionals, and professional printing services, making sure they have the financial fuel they need to pursue their ambitions.
Our intention is to continue to extend this type of support to the Slovenian market, making access to finance easier as we collectively move towards a greener, digital and more inclusive Europe.
Success stories
Chipolo
Success stories
Chipolo
Chipolo is a company that wants you to save time and energy. They specialise in colourful item finders and a companion app. Founded in 2013, the company grew from a group of friends into a multinational business whose mission is ‘to simplify your life by helping you keep track of your belongings.’
As CEO Primož Zelenšek explains, the company started back in 2012 with seven friends who wanted to develop a solution for an everyday problem: their colleague's chronic lateness due to losing his things.
The idea was a no-brainer, and the company started to take shape, buoyed also by the emergence of Bluetooth 4.0 chip technology. Soon enough, many distributors came flooding in and Chipolo really took off. Today the company sells products to both businesses and consumers. Apart from the design of the product, Chipolo actually produces everything in Slovenia. “ I believe we can produce right here in Europe, but it must be done in a smart way,” Primož concludes.
Sector ICT
Purpose Growth financing
Doctrina
“We believe that keeping knowledge up to date is crucial for professional development, so we wanted to make it accessible to anyone, anytime and anywhere,” says Tomaž Erjavec, CEO of Doctrina, which offers online education to pharmacists, specialist retailers, doctors, and other healthcare professionals through interactive video courses.
“Each video is about eight minutes long and the key thing is that they can watch it and get all the relevant information about a product whenever it suits them. When it comes to sales visits from the representatives of pharmaceutical companies, 90% of the time ‘is not a good time’. Health professionals are busy people. By using videos, we overcome this problem,” Tomaž says. “The approach is less costly, more efficient and ultimately more effective.”
With clients including the big pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and GSK, Doctrina is growing fast, but it’s not all about sales for Tomaž: “Throughout this process, I basically learned that I knew nothing, so in this business we keep our ears open. Two-way communication is key.”
Sector ICT
Purpose Scaling-up
Schwarzmann
Based just outside Ljubljana, Schwarzmann is a company active in the field of steel structures, designing, manufacturing and assembling prefabricated steel-structure business and production facilities since 1993. “We have built more than 2100 buildings and facilities in 25 countries around the world in just the last 20 years,” says CEO Boštjan Bevec. And for the most part, these projects are not standard formats out of the production chain. Rather, there is a very high degree of customisation that goes into each and every Schwarzmann project.
“We have our own people to handle the project from idea to handover,” explains Boštjan. “Our team is highly skilled. We invest a lot in our people, hiring them young, bringing them in as interns and then training them to ensure the highest quality output.”
Despite its roots in Slovenia, Schwarzmann is keen on developing its work in the DACH region, recently undertaking a very large project in Germany. Over 30 years, this small family-owned company has grown significantly, accompanying its clients in their own growth aspirations.
Sector Manufacturing
Purpose Working capital
EKWB
“I was playing video games back in the early 2000s and my PC was overheating. My air-cooled heatsink wasn’t working well enough. That’s how I found out about liquid cooling,” explains Edvard König, founder of EKWB (“Edvard König Water Blocks”), which develops and manufactures liquid-cooled components that eliminate excess heat from CPUs and GPUs. “Your computer will run faster and better if it’s cooler. And water has quite simply about 4000 times better heat capacity than air, so by using liquid cooling you can cool the CPU more efficiently.”
Despite its humble beginnings, the company is now a leading global company, exporting to over 130 countries. It’s also expanding to other solutions, like cooling data centres. As the world digitalises fast, data centres are growing as well, and they produce a lot of heat. “Data centres are a science. Cooling them is normally very complex, with hot isles, cold isles, tunnels below and above the floor, but with liquid cooling things become a lot simpler,” Matjaz explains.
Sector Liquid cooling
Purpose Working capital, R&D, Inventory
Key figures
Figures as of December 2024
Over
of EIF financing
Transactions with financial intermediaries
Equity investments since inception
Guarantees support since inception
made available for
Slovenian businesses
Mandates in focus
The EIF continues to deploy capital in Slovenia under a wide range of strategic programmes and mandates. Below are brief summaries of our main initiatives in Slovenia.
InvestEU
The InvestEU programme provides the EU with crucial long-term funding by leveraging substantial private and public funds in support of a sustainable recovery. It is helping to mobilise private investments for the EU’s policy priorities, such as the European Green Deal and the digital transition. The InvestEU Programme brings together under one roof the multitude of EU financial instruments previously available to support investment in the EU, making funding for investment projects in Europe simpler, more efficient and more flexible. The programme consists of three components: the InvestEU Fund, the InvestEU Advisory Hub and the InvestEU Portal. The InvestEU Fund is implemented through financial partners that will invest in projects using the EU budget guarantee of €26.2 billion. The entire budget guarantee will back the investment projects of the implementing partners, increase their risk-bearing capacity and thus mobilise at least €372 billion in additional investment.
RCR
The EIB’s Risk Capital Resources (RCR) is the core pillar of the EIF’s equity activity. It has enabled us to pursue our equity strategy in the venture capital and growth segments for more than 25 years. In 2024, RCR accounted for about 24% of our equity activity, committing €1.7bn to financial intermediaries.
EFSI
The European Fund for Strategic Investments formed part of the EU’s Investment Plan for Europe, launched by the European Commission in 2015. EFSI addressed market gaps in financing - whether in infrastructure, research, energy efficiency or risk finance for SMEs – and mobilised private investment into these areas. Through EFSI the EIF deployed €10.5bn in resources of the European Commission, the EIB and the EIF to improve access to finance for SMEs and small midcaps.
REPowerEU
The EU launched REPowerEU in 2022 to reduce dependence on fossil-fuel imports and accelerate the green transition. To support the plan, in October 2022, the EIB Group developed a package of measures focussing on renewable energy, energy efficiency, electricity networks and on deepening its engagement in green innovation and breakthrough technologies. Under REPowerEU, the EIF will invest €4.5bn by 2027 through EIF equity products.
EGF
The European Guarantee Fund was created by the EIB Group with contributions from Slovenia and other Member States to protect companies struggling in the crisis caused by COVID-19. With almost €25bn in guarantees, the EGF allowed the EIB and EIF to swiftly offer companies, mostly SMEs and mid-caps, access to loans, guarantees, asset-backed securities, capital and other financial instruments. The EGF forms part of the package of recovery measures put in place by the EU, with the objective of providing a total of €540bn to support the hardest hit sectors of the European economy.
CEFoF
The Central Europe Fund of Funds (CEFoF) is a €97m fund-of-funds initiative created in close co-operation with the governments and national agencies of Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia to boost equity investments into SMEs and small mid-caps across the region, establishing a sound market-based risk financing infrastructure, implementing the best market standards for equity investments in businesses and attracting institutional investors and investment managers to Central Europe.
SEGIP
The Slovene Equity Growth Investment Programme (SEGIP) is an equity investment programme launched in 2017 by the EIF and the Slovenian national promotional institution, SID Banka. Following its initial success, the programme was topped up to reach a total size of €110m to support early-stage start-ups, scale-ups and family businesses seeking a change of ownership. The objective of SEGIP is to support Slovene SMEs and midcaps, to attract international private equity investment to Slovenia and to build local capacity by supporting emerging fund managers which focus a significant part of their investments into Slovene companies. The funding is to be invested alongside private investors and will support Slovene SMEs’ and midcaps’ access to growth and expansion equity capital.
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