FDI awards go to sock maker and smart home technology developer

The Kočevje-based Intersocks, which produces and sells socks and distributes well-known brands, received the FDI Award Slovenia in the Creative category.

"Expanding and increasing its production capacity, it managed to achieve a high value added per employee in the past year," the award jury said, noting that the company was among the leading sock producers in terms of this criterion.

Employing 170 people, Intersocks is part of the international Intersocks Group, which also has subsidiaries in Switzerland, Italy, Croatia and Poland. It has been present in Slovenia for 25 years, more intensively since 2018, when it established a knitting plant in Kočevje.

Its value added per employee reached almost EUR 80,000 last year, which is a major improvement compared to previous years, while the number of employees is steadily growing, having doubled in the last five years, the award jury said.

Last year, Intersocks generated more than EUR 50 million in revenue and EUR 4 million in profit. "These are excellent results considering ... the difficult supply of some raw materials, unpredictable delivery times and the growth of logistics, materials and energy costs."

The Ljubljana-based smart home technology maker Plume Design meanwhile received the award in the Smart category, with the award jury noting that it was a fast-growing company that offers innovative and smart solutions for management of telecommunications devices in homes.

"It employs more than 120 top experts and generated EUR 1.7 million in profit from sales last year. With value added per employee of EUR 127,450, it places high above the Slovenian average," the jury added.

The company is part of the Plume software-as-a-service company, based in Palo Alto, California, and present in more than 30 countries, which provides services for smart homes used in more than 43 million homes around the world, and which has received numerous awards.

These include the Cloud-Based Solution of the Year, Broadband World Forum Awards 2021, Best Cyber-security Solution as part of the 2021 ISPA Awards 2021 and the Best Wi-Fi Innovation with Liberty Global as part of ONEConnect 2021.

As Spirit Slovenija acting director Rok Capl noted at the award ceremony in Ljubljana, foreign investors bring excellence, advanced technologies and diverse experience to Slovenia, so they are a vital and strategic part of the country's business environment.

"They are oriented towards the future, because they have good access to funding and can expand faster ... and they are excellent ambassadors of the Slovenian state and economy in their home countries," he added.

The agency has also developed a programme called Further Growth and Development of Companies with Foreign and Mixed Capital for individual treatment of foreign investors in Slovenia. Capl said it had proved to be successful, and it currently featured more than 80 companies.