PRAGUE, Czech Republic, April 27, 2022 – Rohlik Group growth is showing no signs of slowing down, ending its fiscal year with over 1 million active customers, almost 10 million orders and €490 million in net revenues. “The last 12 months have been ones of rapid growth and development,” points out Founder and CEO Tomáš Čupr, adding: “With an NPS¹ of over 70 in all markets and impressive retention rates, we have material proof that our mission to help Europeans eat and live better is improving our customers’ lives.”

 

Continued Growth

Rohlik Group is posting €490 million in net revenue and rapid 53% YoY growth over the last 12 months (05/21-04/22), despite running up against the full-on pandemic year of 2020-21. “Our sales growth has been driven by Rohlik Group having surpassed the one million customer mark and we are pleased not to see a post-pandemic softening or a slowdown in growth. And, not only is our core Czech market EBITDA profitable since 2018, all of our four existing markets are on a path to be contribution profitable in the upcoming fiscal year,” says Tomáš Čupr.

 

Last year, Rohlik Group launched Knuspr.de in Germany in Munich and Frankfurt, with Hamburg to follow this year. The coming weeks will also see the launches of Italy and Romania and later in the year Spain - all under the new Sezamo brand. This growth and performance-to-date positions Rohlik Group to become mainland Europe's largest full basket pure online supermarket².

 

Significant investments are taking place in technology and people. Fulfilment centre automation will take place in 2022 in Munich, Hamburg and Prague, to the tune of €45 million, with plans to invest hundreds of millions of euros more in the coming years to support this growth.

 

Becoming a Unicorn

In July 2021, Rohlik Group successfully raised an additional €100 million in Series C funding and, in doing so, became the first ever Czech Unicorn. The round was led by Index Ventures, which was also part of Rohlik’s prior Series B raise, and will also enable over 150 employees to partake in an employee stock ownership plan with up to 8% of the company's value being distributed in this manner.

 

It’s all about the food… and data

A key e-grocery business performance indicator is average order value, and Rohlik Group’s AOV has topped 85 EUR as an average for Western European markets. Notably, AOV has remained constant or is growing across all markets despite pandemic measures easing, generating higher profitability per order and further contributing to the sustainability and robustness of the Rohlik Group's business model.

 

Adding context, Tomáš Čupr explains: “In total, we delivered close to 200 million items to customers in the last fiscal year. Whilst instant grocery delivery was a big topic among food startups in Europe last year, we are building a much bigger and more viable proposition. Our virtual supermarket has over 17,000 items and such a broad range drives shopping frequency as customers don’t have to shop elsewhere. The result is we are truly becoming a one-stop-shop, delivering a full week’s shopping for a whole family in as little as 90 minutes.”

 

Orders are composed of a mix of popular international and domestic brands and the best quality and freshest local produce and artisanal products. Meat, bread, baked goods, fruit and vegetables and other locally sourced products are all delivered directly to fulfilment centres by producers and farmers, ensuring that customers receive these goods in as little as 6 hours from harvesting or production.

 

One of the most customer-centric companies in the world

"Amazing the customer" is a core Rohlik Group value and company research shows customers want high product and slot availability, making the shopping experience very reliable. Rohlik Group customers also enjoy extremely low replacements and low incompleteness of orders. Also integral is hassle-free handling of refunds, often one of the most problematic aspects of e-commerce customer experience. Rohlik Group has tackled this with an easy-to-use online process. Refunds are handled instantly in just a few clicks and without customers having to call or write anywhere and compensation delivered in the form of credits added to their account. These differentiating customer centric policies contribute to very high NPS (Net Promoter Score) at an aggregated 70+ across all markets.

 

European expansion

Italy, Romania and Spain are the next markets Rohlik Group will be launching this year under the new Sezamo brand. In Q2 2022, nearly 2.5 million new households in Milan and Bucharest will have access to this unique online grocery experience, with Italy expected to be the second-largest market after Germany. In addition to new countries, the footprint is being expanded in countries where Rohlik Group is already present. Knuspr.de expanded to Frankfurt in February with the city of Hamburg to be launched next.

 

The future?

Rohlik Group’s business model is both sustainable for the long term and scalable, enabling expansion throughout Europe. Its plans for the future are certainly ambitious, with a stated goal of being the premier pan-European retailer of the 21st century, serving tens of millions of customers Europe-wide. “Our goal remains unchanged: To enable more Europeans to live happier and healthier lives, which we achieve by being the number one choice for those who want to buy their full weekly shopping groceries online. We are building a company that is disrupting grocery retail behemoths,” summarises Tomáš Čupr.

 

About Rohlik Group

Founded in 2014 in the Czech Republic, Rohlik Group is one of Europe's leading online grocery delivery services. Already active in the Czech Republic (Rohlik.cz), Hungary (Kifli.hu), Austria (Gurkerl.at) and Germany (Knuspr.de) it is launching in Romania, Italy and Spain in 2022 under the Sezamo brand for these three countries. Deploying world-leading technology & logistics to deliver a huge range of quality products (17 000 SKUs+), it can offer a 15-minute delivery window with delivery as soon as within 90 minutes of placing an order in some countries. As a tech company, it is data-driven in everything it does. By owning its end-to-end operations, including having all technology in-house, customers are provided with a superior shopping experience including delivery of the freshest food from local farmers and artisans, as well as a broad supermarket selection and its own private label brands. The company is dynamic and growing rapidly, attaining unicorn status in 2021.

 

For career enquiries visit career.rohlik.group

 

¹NPS is a widely used market research metric rating likelihood of a customer recommending a company, product, or a service to a friend or colleague - typically interpreted and used as an indicator of customer loyalty.
²McKinsey breakdown: full basket vs. instant delivery vs. online discount