Investments from the Slovak Investment Holding received a European award!
Brussels, December 5, 2019 – The SIH’s venture capital financial instrument for innovative small and medium sized enterprises won a prestigious European award, organised by „fi-compass“ – a financial instruments platform set up by the European Commission and the European Investment Bank. The award represents Slovakia’s biggest recognition in the use of European Structural and Investment Funds thus far.
The fi-compass event is dedicated to promotion of financial instruments, i.e. repayable forms of financing from the European Structural and Investment Funds. Projects competing for the award were submitted in the form of video presentations. SIH succeeded with its venture capital financial instrument for innovative small and medium sized enterprises. The video focused on equity and quasi equity investments into Boataround, GA Drilling, GreenWay and KOOR.
Over 30 projects from EU countries competed for the fi-compass award. The event organisers consisting of experts from the European Commission and the European Investment Bank selected top 10 projects ahead of the event. The top three projects (without particular ranking) were selected through the vote of hundreds of participants directly at the event.
The award represents one of the most successful stories about the use of European Structural and Investments Funds in Slovakia. The other two awarded projects were related to the renovation of a brownfield area in Bulgaria’s Sofia and the reconstruction of a historical slaughterhouse building in Poland’s Szczecin.
The award was received in Brussels by SIH’s Chief Investment Officer, Peter Dittrich, who commented: “While SIH covers a wide spectrum of investment areas, our venture capital financing for innovative companies is relatively scarce in the Slovak and central European markets and there is a strong demand for it. We view today’s award as a recognition that SIH financial instruments represent a sensible way for investing European resources into outstanding projects in Slovakia”.
Link to fi-compass award website
https://www.fi-compass.eu/event/5506/fi-campus-2019-looking-ahead-2021-and-beyond
Link to announcement of the award recipients https://twitter.com/ficompass/status/1202608760109379584
Information about SIH
SIH is a 100% state-owned joint stock company. Its primary goal is to support strategic public and private investments in Slovakia in the areas of infrastructure, energy efficiency, waste management, social economy, health, cultural and creative industries and small and medium-sized enterprises. SIH draws on European Structural and Investment Funds to make its investments. Projects are financed exclusively in repayable form, i.e., using financial instruments instead of grants.