Slovenia pilot identifies 100 firms to anchor European scale-up strategy

The Future 100 Slovenia project, unveiled at the Future 500 Forum, addresses a persistent European challenge: identifying high-growth potential before it stalls. Stjepan Orešković, founder of the initiative, argues that raw capital is insufficient without a precise strategy to select, connect, and support emerging winners. The methodology relies on research from the IEDC – Bled School of Management, alongside expertise from Harvard, Oxford, and other international institutions.

At the forum, officials including Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković and Slovenia’s Deputy Prime Minister Anže Logar discussed shifting the continent's focus from mere funding to active acceleration. The initiative aims to move beyond simple investment by integrating these companies into networks of expertise and global market access. As the European Investment Bank prepares its ETC 2.0 scale-up program, the Slovenian pilot serves as a testing ground for a broader deployment across the continent, prioritizing early identification of businesses that can hold their own against US and Chinese competitors.