Czech online grocery startup Rohlik announced today that it has raised a €100 million (~$119M USD) Series C round of funding. TechCrunch was first to report the news, writing that the round was led by existing investor Index Ventures, with participation from Partech and Quadrille Capital, who had also previously invested in Rohlik.
This funding comes just months after Rohlik raised a €190 million (~$230 million USD) Series B round in March of this year. This brings the total amount of funding raised by Rohlik to nearly $380 million, and according to TechCrunch, Rohlik is now valued at €1 billion (~$1.2 billion USD).
That Rohlik is able to raise gobs of money in such quick succession is not a surprise. Investment in the online grocery space has been frothy this year, with players like Weee!, Instacart, Xingsheng Youxuan and many more all hauling in big rounds in the first half of 2021. Driving much of this investment is the pandemic, which pushed droves of people into avoiding public spaces and buying their groceries online for either pickup or delivery.
More recently, funding has been going towards smaller, dark grocer stores that promise grocery delivery in under fifteen minutes. Companies like Gorillas, Getir and Gopuff have also raised tons of cash for rapid expansion this year. Rohlik, however, is more of like a traditional big-box online grocer offering delivery in two hours. This “slower” approach doesn’t seem to have impacted the bottom line. Rohlik told TechCrunch that its revenues in 2020 passed €300 million with more than 750,000 customers, with basket sizes between €60 and €100 per order.
The pandemic remains the big question mark looming over the entire online grocery space. While vaccines are rolling out around the world, many countries in Europe have only a third of their populations fully vaccinated as of now, and the full effect of complications like the Delta variant remain unknown. How potential resurgences in the virus could impact how people shop for groceries remains to be seen.
For its part, Rohlik has already expanded its services to Hungary and Austria, with plans to move into Germany, Romania, Italy, France and Spain.
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