- EIB provides €30 million in financing to Czech online grocery retailer Rohlik for AI-powered automation.
- Investment boosts digital innovation, competitiveness, and jobs in Europe.
- Accord marks second EIB operation with Rohlik since 2024, bringing total support to €120 million
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is committing €30 million to Rohlik Group, a pioneering Czech online grocery retailer, to support its development of advanced automation and artificial intelligence. The operation tops up the initial EIB scale-up financing of €90 million to Rohlik two years ago, which facilitated its expansion in several European markets.
The investment will accelerate the commercial scale-up of Veloq, Rohlik's AI-powered technology platform for same-day grocery fulfilment, as it expands to grocers across Europe and the United States. As in 2024, the support takes the form of scale-up venture debt, a type of long-term financing for fast-growing companies
Founded in Prague in 2014, Rohlik is one of three Czech startups valued at more than $1 billion – the threshold for “unicorn” status. Over the past 16 years, the company has expanded beyond the Czech Republic to Hungary, Austria, Germany and Romania, combining a highly automated operating model with advanced software and AI-driven processes.
”Rohlik is a clear example of a European technology champion that has moved successfully from rapid market expansion to the development of proprietary, scalable technology,“said EIB Vice President Marek Mora. ”It combines strong consumer recognition with deep technological know-how. With this investment, we are supporting Rohlik in the next stage of its journey, turning proven, AI-driven fulfilment solutions into Veloq, a platform with the potential to benefit the wider European retail and logistics ecosystem.”
The operation responds to a market gap in availability of risk financing for late-stage, high-growth European scale-up companies. It is backed by the European Union’s InvestEU programme through an EIB financing window for “Future Technologies”.
“European customers want fresh, full-basket groceries delivered on their schedule,” said Rohlik Chief Executive Officer and founder Tomáš Čupr. “We've spent a decade building the technology that makes that work, profitably, across five markets. The EIB's continued backing helps put it into the hands of other grocers through Veloq.”
The company will carry out its new EIB-financed activities in the Czech Republic, generating innovation, employment and know-how benefits across Europe’s retail and logistics networks.
Background information
EIB Group
The EIB Group, which also includes the European Investment Fund (EIF), signed nearly €100 billion in new financing in 2025. These commitments are expected to mobilise around €350 billion in investments and create 1.5 million jobs by 2029. In Czechia, the EIB Group signed operations worth a total of €1.93 billion last year. For more information, please visit the EIB website.
InvestEU
The InvestEU programme provides the European Union with long-term funding by leveraging substantial private and public funds in support of a sustainable recovery. It also helps crowd in private investment for the European Union’s strategic priorities such as the European Green Deal and the digital transition. InvestEU brings all EU financial instruments previously available for supporting investments within the European Union together under one roof, making funding for investment projects in Europe simpler, more efficient and more flexible. The programme consists of three components: the InvestEU Fund, the InvestEU Advisory Hub and the InvestEU Portal. The InvestEU Fund is deployed through implementing partners that will invest in projects using the EU budget guarantee of €26.2 billion. The entire budget guarantee will back the investment projects of the implementing partners, increase their risk-bearing capacity and thus mobilise at least €372 billion in additional investment.
About Rohlik Group & Veloq
Founded in 2014 in the Czech Republic, Rohlik Group has built the definitive industry model for online grocery and is fast becoming Europe's food retail technology leader. With over 25,000 SKUs spanning local farmers, supermarket goods and private label brands, 15-minute delivery windows and same-day deliveries, Rohlik delivers 97% of orders on time and has grown roughly 30% year-on-year to around $2 billion in revenue across the Czech Republic (Rohlik.cz), Hungary (Kifli.hu), Austria (Gurkerl.at), Germany (Knuspr.de) and Romania (Sezamo.ro).
Veloq is the platform powering the next generation of grocery fulfilment. It’s built on the technology behind Rohlik Group, where it runs over 2.1 million orders a month across five markets, with NPS consistently above 90. Veloq is the operating system for same-day e-grocery: automated picking, warehouse execution, predictive inventory, e-commerce fulfilment and last-mile routing — unified by an AI orchestration layer for labour and dispatch.