Starting with the biggest success story so far. Outfit7, co-founded by Iza and Samo Login and regarded as one of the most valuable and biggest in the industry of mobile entertainment apps. Outfit7 received global recognition with Talking Tom and Family franchise, centred around a mobile app where anthropomorphic animal characters repeat the user's words. The Cyprus-based company, headquartered in London and with development departments in Ljubljana, also stands out as it didn't receive any investment capital, the Logins were able to fund and sustain the growth until they sold the company to a Chinese conglomerate for US $1bn at the beginning of 2017.

The current year is apparently a good one for lucrative exit deals. Zemanta, one of the earliest Slovenian tech start-ups founded in 2006, also changed ownership, leaving its founders, Andraž Tori and Boštjan Špetič, millionaires. The Ljubljana-based advertising technology company was sold to Outbrain, the world's largest content discovery platform (think of suggested content, usually placed under various articles). The sale price was not disclosed but according to some reports, the deal has been valued at around EUR 20m.

Both transactions are regarded as evidence that the ecosystem is maturing and is able to produce tangible results. The same goes for investment activity which has grown over the past few years. In 2016, Slovenian start-ups raised almost US $100m worldwide, according to a Slovenian venture fund, Silicon Gardens. Among the most successful start-ups are fashion marketplace, Lyst (raising EUR 50m so far); conversation platform, Layer (EUR 25m); student accommodation platform, Uniplaces (EUR 24m); and Urban Mining Company (EUR 21m) which is developing technology that is able to recycle magnets.

Start-ups are all the rage with some of them having fundamentally changed industries that have been more all less the same for decades (think of Uber and Airbnb, the poster children of the "new" economy). Some people believe that blockchain technology has - similarly to internet - the same potential to disrupt incumbents, in particular the financial sector. In the meantime, Slovenian start-ups have been at the forefront of efforts to bring blockchain innovations to life. Companies, such as Iconomi, Cofound.it, Hive, SunContract, and Viberate, are utilising the new technology to bring more transparency and security to different industries - investment management, factoring, live music and energy trading.

They all still have a long way to go but who knows, maybe in five or ten years people will be able to say that they were there when the next Google or Facebook was born, this time in Slovenia!