The backbone of the Slovenian economy is without doubt its strong manufacturing sector, with information and communication technology representing only a small part of it. According to the Slovenian Chamber of Industry and Commerce (GZS), ICT companies generated 3.3 percent of total sales revenues and contributed only 2.9 percent to Slovenia’s exports. According to the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia (SURS), the industry’s 11,000 companies, with close to 37,000 employees, generated 6.5 billion euros in revenues in 2024.

Despite its limited size, the chamber perceives the ICT sector as a “backbone of the new industrial revolution in Slovenia” with important multiplicative effects on the whole economy. The industry is thus an essential element of the chamber’s new strategy labelled Made in Slovenia 2035. Indeed, the sector is growing much faster than the national economy – by 6 percent in 2024. Its value added per employee is 40 percent higher than the average and grew by a significant 16 percent in 2024. But probably the most important factor behind the optimism expressed in the chamber’s document is the presence of tech leaders in several small yet important niches.

These niches include, among others, AI-based and blockchain solutions, healthcare support systems, measurement technologies, geospatial systems, and computer vision. Tech leaders include companies like Dewesoft and INEA. Dewesoft is one of the world’s ten most significant data acquisition companies. Its instruments and measurement solutions are used in the space exploration programmes of NASA and ESA. INEA, a company founded by Slovenia’s leading scientific institution, the Jožef Stefan Institute, back in 1987, develops industrial automation systems with a strong emphasis on quality control systems based on AI and advanced computer vision.

The Dewesoft Group is also one of the nation’s largest IT companies, with 19 subsidiaries around the globe. The group employs over 400 people, half of them outside Slovenia. In late 2025, the group acquired a majority stake in Slovenian enterprise Irnas, a specialist in real-time data acquisition systems. Another large company is network services specialist NIL, with 55 million euros in sales and over 200 employees. NIL is part of its Danish-headquartered peer Conscia.

Yet most of Slovenia’s IT companies are rather small. XLab strongly focuses on research and is among the most successful SMEs in Europe when it comes to projects supported by EU funds. The company is a strong player on the Japanese market with its ISL (Internet Services Layer) solutions. The company’s revenues were still below 10 million euros in 2024. Celtra developed AI-based solutions for the creation of omnichannel advertising campaigns. The company generates all of its 11 million euros in revenue outside Slovenia. Zebra BI’s data visualization tools are used by major global brands from Deloitte to Disney; even Microsoft uses Zebra BI tools for its internal reporting. The company’s 2025 sales remained just below 10 million euros. Another highly innovative yet still very small company is MIL Sistemika, a developer of solutions used in military command and control, communications, and training and simulation products. Many promising IT companies specialize in healthcare solutions (see separate article in this issue of the e-newsletter). Again, the sales of these companies stay well below 10 million euros.

Slovenian IT companies are thus mostly very small, which could be perceived as a disadvantage. They may be small, but they are focused, flexible and cutting-edge. These characteristics offer fertile ground for fast and healthy growth.