Pipistrel and Bia Separations are two tech companies from Ajdovščina in western Slovenia. A network of tech companies and R&D facilities has started to appear around these global niche leaders.
Ajdovščina is a small town with 19.000 inhabitants in the fertile and beautiful Valley of Vipava, one of Lonely Planet's Top Ten European destinations in 2018. The town used to be a relatively important local industrial center in times of ex-Yugoslavia. With the arrival of the market economy, old industrial companies either downsized or completely collapsed, and Ajdovščina has had to rebuild its economic foundations.
In recent times Ajdovščina has become a small, yet important tech-hub. Its first small cluster is the aerotech industry. It is centered around Pipistrel, a leading producer of small aircraft and the world's first company serially producing an electric airplane. C- Astral, another company located in Ajdovščina, produces complex drones for the Slovenian Army and for other, non-military applications.
Another high-tech industry centered in Ajdovščina is biotech. The small town is the headquarters of COBIK, Centre of Excellence for Biosensors, Instrumentation and Process Control. This is a private research institution operating since 2010 in areas such as bio-chemistry, bio-instrumentation, optics, new materials and advanced purification processes in pharmacy.
One of the key partners in Cobik is Bia Separations, a leading developer and manufacturer of monolithic chromatographic columns for production, purification, and analytics of large biomolecules – a key technology used in gene therapy. The company was formed 20 years ago and has its research and production facilities in Ajdovščina. Earlier this year Bia developed key technology for gen-tech specialist AveXis: Bia expect to raise its revenues from 8 to 80 million euros in upcoming years from this collaboration alone.
The development of high tech companies in a tiny town with Roman origins is also helped by the vicinity of the first private Slovenian university in Nova Gorica, near the Italian border: the university also has nearby premises in Vipava. Last but not least: Ajdovščina is among the municipalities offering the best incentives and help to investors and entrepreneurs in Slovenia.
