SEF

The Slovene Enterprise Fund (SEF) is a public financial fund for financial support to Slovenian micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with favourable guarantee, credit and equity lines for the growth and development of the SMEs and start-up lines for new enterprises.

The purpose of SEF’s operations is to improve access to favourable financial resources in the market. To achieve that purpose the SEF offers financial instruments in the form of:

• Guarantees as collateral for bank loans with interest rate subsidy that represent the largest share of the approved funds of SEF, for the fourth development phase,
• Start Up Incentives to young enterprises (start-ups less than 12 months old) in the first development phase,
• Seed Capital to young enterprises (less than 5 years old) in the second development phase and their entrance on the market,
• Venture Capital for the fast-growing innovative enterprises in the third development phase in the form of capital investments and mezzanine loans together with private investors through venture capital companies,
• Microcredits represent direct credits of SEF at an affordable contractual interest rate, for the fourth development phase, and
• Special Incentives for specific target groups of companies or specific purposes (for the development of the timber industry, for the digital transformation of SMEs,…).

SEF also upgrades financial support for its products with substantive support programme (coaching support, vouchers and other programmes) that SEF implements with other key stakeholders of the start-up ecosystem.

As of end-2021, SEF had an outstanding guarantee volume of around mEUR 310 and supported almost 2,400 SMEs.

AECM accession year	2007
Legal form	Fund
Ownership	Public
Geographical and sectoral coverage	National All sectors
Products	Loan default guarantees, Project guarantees, Subsidised loans, Mezzanine financing, Venture capital, Coaching, special start-up incentives, seed capital
Counter-guarantee	EU counter-guarantee (under shared and central management)

Maribor/Brussels, 3^rd January 2023