Slovenia is a mountainous country at the intersection of international trade routes. Located in central Europe, this country is in the nascent stages of growing into a thriving startup community. With a diverse history, this country is one of the forward-looking economies in the continent.

Its capital city, Ljubljana offers a welcoming setup for startups encouraging both local talent and expats. Eventually, there are many cutting-edge tech startups that are based in this city. Also, one of the major cities in Slovenia, Maribor hosts the Podim conference and Coinvest tech investment conference wherein invests from nearly 30 countries participate.

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Without further ado, here we have listed the fastest-growing Slovenia tech startups to watch out for in 2020 as sourced from Dealroom.

Picture credits: biosurfit

biosurfit (Ljubljana)

Founders: João Garcia da Fonseca

Funding: €10.1 million

Founded year: 2006

Why its hot: biosurfit is a Portuguese diagnostic company, which focuses on the development and manufacturing of IVD tests directly at the Point-of-Care with its innovative proprietary tech. The company also operates in several other countries including Slovenia. biosurfit has developed the spinit technology, which is a diagnostic system that can perform major PoC blood test modalities on a single instrument. The company operates with the intention to shape up the future of in-vitro diagnostic testing.

Picture credits: GenePlanet

GenePlanet (Ljubljana)

Founders: Marko Bitenc

Funding: €10.3 million

Founded year: 2008

Why its hot: GenePlanet is a leading service provider of innovative lifestyle and healthcare solutions in Europe based on preventive genetic testing. The company provides preventive genetic tests for the end-users to improve their personalised health, sports, and nutrition based on their DNA. The company provides noninvasive prenatal detection of down syndrome and genetic cancer screening. The vision of GenePlanet is to provide every individual with the possibility to conduct genetic testing that enables them to discover new insights about their body and its functions.

Picture credits: ICONOMI

ICONOMI (Ljubljana)

Founders: Jani Valjavec, Tim Mitja Zagar

Funding: €9.6 million

Founded year: 2016

Why its hot: ICONOMI transforms the way people invest with its experience in the blockchain space and a diverse team of professionals operating with the goal to make cryptocurrency accessible to all. Slovenia-based ICONOMI is one of the first blockchain-based companies to be blockchain audited by a “Big Four” including Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG, and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Picture credits: Eligma

Eligma (Ljubljana)

Founders: Dejan Roljic, Joze Mermal, Matej Gregorcic

Funding: €4 million

Founded year: 2017

Why its hot: Eligma creates payment infrastructure for accepting instant crypto payments at both the offline and online stores. The intention of this startup is to become a global facilitator of secure and seamless crypto payments that has made it one of the hottest high-tech firms in the market right now. Eligma’s payment platform Elipay is now transforming into GoCrypto.com. It lets users buy and sell crypto, pay with crypto, transfer crypto, and use crypto as a reward system.

Picture credits: Quadrofoil

Quadrofoil (Bistrica)

Founders: Simon Pivec, Marjan Rožman

Funding: €3 million

Founded year: 2016

Why its hot: Quadrofoil is shaping the future of the nautical industry with energy-efficient and environmental-friendly vessels powered by electric motors and equipped with hydrofoils and a patented steering system, which can be used on all water surfaces of the world. Notably, this is the designer and manufacturer of the world’s first fully electric-powered and completely environment-friendly hydrofoiling watercraft. Back in early 2019, Quadrofoil secured €3 million funding to expand its manufacturing capacity and accelerate the development of new products.

Picture credits: GoOpti

GoOpti (Ljubljana)

Founders: Marko Gucek, Sašo Sušnik, Tomaž Lorenzetti

Funding: €4.4 million

Founded year: 2011

Why its hot: GoOpti is a fast-growing demand-responsive transportation marketplace startup. It matches passengers for shared and private transfers between remote towns/cities and airports. It deploys advanced big data analytics, innovative revenue management techniques, and probability models to predict when and where people want to travel and provide professional and punctual door-to-door transportation service at the cost of public transportation.

Picture credits: Chipolo

Chipolo (Trbovlje)

Founders: Primož Zelenšek

Funding: €510k

Founded year: 2013

Why its hot: Chipolo is an innovative multinational technology company and one of the leading brands in the Bluetooth tracker market. Chipolo smart devices connect to the Chipolo app and to a global community from there. The company revolutionses the way people look for their lost or misplaced belongings. It is growing rapidly and operates in over 200 countries.

Picture credits: Doctrina

Doctrina (Ljubljana)

Founders: Jure Pučko, Tomaz Erjavec

Funding: €1.7 million

Founded year: 2013

Why its hot: Doctrina is an ambitious enterprise startup that provides pharmaceutical companies with a novel communication tool. Its solution is changing an approach within the business as pharmacy technicians, pharmacists, and other healthcare professionals can develop their knowledge about medical devices and medicines 24*7. With its software solution, Doctrina helps pharmaceutical companies achieve higher and faster results with optimised investment in sales.

Picture credits: CargoX

CargoX (Ljubljana)

Founders: Stefan Kukman

Founded year: 2017

Why its hot: CargoX is focused on the transformation and digital disruption of the shipping industry. CargoX has found a way for exporters to exchange the secure Bill of Lading documentation with the blockchain technology. The company has developed a decentralised platform based on Ethereum network and a pipeline of future products meant for the supply chain industry.

Picture credits: Viberate

Viberate (Ljubljana)

Founders: Matej Gregorčič, Vasja Veber, Uroš Umek

Funding: €910k

Founded year: 2015

Why its hot: Viberate operates with the goal to create the world’s biggest curated live music database with 460,000 musician profiles, 5,000 music festivals, 500,000 events, and 130,000 venues. It joins artists, events, venues, and festivals to create a truly global music network. And, the platform offers comprehensive profiles with details such as basic information and links to videos, photos, gig data, event tickets, etc.

Stock photo from Georgios Tsichlis/Shutterstock

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