Bled, Slovenia – September 07, 2026 -- A new data-driven selection model has identified 100 high-growth Slovenian companies that doubled their combined revenue to 2.1 billion euros, marking the first full rollout of a methodology designed to close Europe's competitiveness gap with the United States and China.
Future 100 Slovenia becomes the pilot for a pan-European scale-up strategy
The Future 100 Slovenia initiative, unveiled at the Future 500 Forum in Bled, is the first national application of the Future 500 Initiative's methodology, which its backers intend to extend across Europe. The forum ran alongside the Bled Strategic Forum under the theme 'Powering Europe's Scale-Up Engine: From Selection to Acceleration.'
EU mobilizes up to 80 billion euros through EIB's ETC 2.0 program
The selection model arrives as the European Investment Bank's ETC 2.0 program works to mobilize as much as 80 billion euros in scale-up investment. Stjepan Orešković, founder of the Future 500 Initiative, said Europe is beginning to mobilize the capital it needs but warned that funding alone will not make the region more competitive. He argued that future market leaders must be identified earlier and connected to the capital, markets and expertise required to compete globally, describing the model's approach as select, connect, support.
Academic consortium spanning Harvard, Oxford and ESMT Berlin built the selection framework
The Future 500 methodology was developed by an international research team from IEDC-Bled School of Management, working with researchers from Harvard, Oxford, the University of Edinburgh and ESMT Berlin, alongside institutions from Central and Eastern Europe.
Senior EU and financial institution officials attended the Bled forum
Participants included Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, Slovenian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy, Labour and Sport Dr Anže Logar, EU Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos, DG GROW Director-General Kerstin Jorna, European Innovation Council President Michiel Scheffer, and representatives from the European Investment Bank, European Investment Fund, EBRD, Nasdaq and Google DeepMind.
The initiative maintains that raising more capital addresses only half of Europe's scale-up challenge, arguing the region must also sharpen how it identifies and supports potential winners before they emerge as global competitors.