With a record-setting 14 startup companies sharing nearly $650,000 in pre-seed funding, Alabama's high-tech sector soared in 2015, courtesy of Alabama Launchpad.

From heart monitors that provide data to cardiologists while patients are home to an affordable Web-based brewery-management platform, Launchpad Programs Director Greg Sheek said the visible diversification in the initiative's 10th year surpassed all expectations.

"Not only did we fund more companies than ever in our startup competition history, but we also provided funding to 11 companies through our Alabama SBIR/STTR Support Program. We saw an uptick in participation across our programs, and we continued to see great diversity in terms of ownership and industry sectors that participated," Sheek said.

During the past decade, Alabama has turned itself into a hotbed of automotive manufacturing by attracting assembly plants from Daimler, Honda, Hyundai and Toyota. Now, the "heart of Dixie" hopes to also become a major player in the aerospace sector.

That dream became a reality in September, when Airbus SAS opened an assembly line in Mobile. It is the first new manufacturer of large commercial aircraft in the United States in four decades.

The state-of-the-art facility is producing the company's most popular airplane, the single-aisle A320. In fact, the A320 family, which includes the A318, A319 and A321 variants, is the world's best-selling commercial aircraft.