Barcelona continues to gain appeal for fast-growing European technology-focused startups. The Czech online supermarket group Rohlik is finalizing its arrival in Spain through the Catalan company Ulabox, which it has acquired with the aim of jointly launching the Sezamo.es brand. Jaume Gomà, the architect of Ulabox, will become the new CEO of Sezamo.es.
In parallel, the company has announced that it will open a digital hub in Barcelona specialized in the development of software and applications based on Android and Java. This center will be the first Tech Hub of Rohlik Group outside the Czech Republic, as it currently has a single technology base located in Prague.
The launch of Sezamo in the Spanish market, which will begin in Madrid, will involve an investment of 50 million euros over the next five years and the initial creation of 200 jobs during the first year, a figure that includes employees of the Barcelona hub, where between 50 and 100 people could work. The company's website has already started publishing the first job offers to recruit software developers. According to Rohlik's CTO, Ondřej Klamt, the goal is "to attract a large and qualified IT workforce to the Iberian Peninsula."
Founded in 2014 by Tomáš Čupr, Rohlik Group is the first unicorn ---a startup valued at over one billion euros--- from the Czech Republic. After having launched online supermarkets in its home country and in Hungary, Austria, and Germany with the brands Rohlik, Kifli, Gurkerl, and Knuspr, respectively, the company closed a hundred-million-euro financing round (series C) in the summer of 2021 led by the fund Index Ventures and intended to finance its growth plan in Europe.
With a turnover that has reached 490 million in the last twelve months, its next targets are Italy, Romania, and Spain, countries through which it will operate with the new Sezamo brand. To enter Spain, Rohlik has partnered with the Barcelona-based digital supermarket Ulabox, which will handle all the administration and logistics of Sezamo.es. The details of the acquisition have not been disclosed, but Rohlik is said to have purchased 100% of Ulabox's capital. The transaction was advised by the firm CreaInversión.
The founder and CEO of Ulabox, Jaume Gomà, will be the CEO of Sezamo.es and David Campoy will become the commercial director of the new company, a responsibility he already held at Ulabox. "As soon as we met Tomáš Čupr and his team, it became clear that both parties shared many points of view: from the passion for offering the best customer service, to a sustainable approach to doing business, including offering the best local products," explains Gomà. Ulabox, which has never managed to generate profits, had about twenty employees until now and last year invoiced around six million euros. Apart from Gomà, the Miquel family was a shareholder of the company.
"I am especially happy that the Ulabox management team has decided to join us," emphasizes Tomáš Čupr, CEO and founder of Rohlik Group. The executive is "enthusiastic" about the growth plans in the Spanish market, which will begin in Madrid in the second half of the year. In parallel, Ulabox will continue to offer its online supermarket services in Barcelona, although it is possible that the brand may eventually be replaced by Sezamo in the medium term.
Sezamo operates with a positioning similar to Ulabox, very focused on the distribution of fresh products and with a strong commitment to offering good customer service. In this sense, the new brand wants to differentiate itself from the many digital supermarkets that have appeared on the market and are based on ultra-fast deliveries of small shopping baskets, a segment where the Turkish group Getir and the Catalan Glovo operate. Sezamo will offer the possibility of buying an assortment of 8,000 fresh food items, with home delivery in a maximum of 3 hours.
Present in cities such as Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Munich and Frankfurt, the Rohlik group surpassed the mark of 600,000 orders in one month in March 2021 and delivered more than eight million orders in 2021, which means a 70% growth compared to the previous year. The group's digital supermarkets have a base of more than one million active customers, with revenues of 490 million in the last twelve months, up 53%. According to Čupr, the company is already profitable in the Czech market and "is on track to be so" in the other four markets where it operates "in the next fiscal year."
In the second semester, in addition to entering Madrid, the startup will land in Bucharest and Milan. "Our goal remains the same: to enable more Europeans to live happier and healthier lives, becoming the number one choice for those who want to buy their complete weekly groceries online," summarizes Tomáš Čupr.
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