Prague-based startup TopK announced today that it has raised €4.6 million in Seed funding to accelerate its mission of transforming how developers and AI agents search and retrieve data at scale. The company will use the new capital to expand its team, build enterprise-grade features, and support web-scale search use cases across industries.
TopK’s funding round attracted several major investors, including Earlybird, KAYA, Irregular Expressions, and a network of angel investors who believe in the team’s bold vision. The startup, founded in 2024 by longtime collaborators Marek Galovič and Jerguš Lejko, is reimagining search infrastructure to address the growing needs of AI-native applications.
Building a Search Engine for the AI Era
TopK’s founders have deep roots in large-scale systems and artificial intelligence. After working separately for several years, Galovič and Lejko reconnected to tackle a problem that continues to challenge development teams—searching structured and unstructured data effectively and efficiently.
“The database market is undergoing a fundamental transformation,” said Marek Galovič, CEO and co-founder. “AI-native products are pushing the limits of traditional search systems. These systems no longer meet the demands of modern development. Our platform addresses this shift and provides a solution for developers and AI agents to unify structured and unstructured retrieval at scale.”
The Problem with Legacy Search Systems
Modern development teams face several limitations when it comes to search infrastructure. Most companies still rely on fragmented tools, multiple APIs, and legacy databases that weren’t designed to support AI-native workloads. As the rise of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT increases the demand for vector search, traditional systems fall behind.
TopK solves this problem with its purpose-built query engine, which supports hybrid search by combining vector search, keyword matching, filtering, and custom ranking—all in a single, scalable system.
This approach gives teams the control they need to fine-tune search results for their specific domain. Whether in e-commerce, finance, healthcare, or legal services, TopK enables accurate, high-speed, and relevant search experiences without cobbling together multiple technologies.
A Platform Designed for Developers
TopK does not offer a one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, it empowers development teams with deep customization, flexibility, and performance. The cloud-native platform provides a unified query layer designed specifically for intelligent retrieval, making it ideal for teams that demand both scalability and cost-efficiency.
“We are changing the way data is searched,” said Jerguš Lejko, CTO and co-founder. “Our platform is tailored for development teams that work with large volumes of data. These teams need performance, flexibility, and cost control. We aim to become the unified query layer that powers search for the world’s most advanced apps.”
TopK also encourages design partnerships with companies that want to test the platform’s limits. The team welcomes technically demanding use cases to help push their product’s capabilities even further.
Scaling with Seed Capital
With the €4.6 million raised, TopK plans to scale its team, enhance the platform, and target enterprise-level adoption. The team will focus on several strategic areas:
- Hiring top-tier engineering talent in Prague
- Expanding enterprise support features
- Enhancing hybrid search performance
- Integrating natural language understanding
- Supporting unstructured and multi-modal data
TopK’s roadmap includes advanced features that will allow the platform to move beyond a traditional search database and deliver truly intelligent, contextual search experiences.
Investors Backing the Vision
TopK’s investors see the company as a future leader in the AI infrastructure space.
Andre Retterath, General Partner at Earlybird, said:
“Companies are facing the limitations of current search systems. TopK brings a fundamental shift in how infrastructure is built. The team understands the pain points that developers face every day. That’s why we support their vision to create a search system for the AI era.”
Karel Zheng from KAYA added:
“TopK has built the core of their database to deliver the fastest and most cost-effective hybrid search solution on the market. The investment will help them accelerate development, deliver enterprise-grade features, and succeed globally.”
TopK’s lean team has already achieved significant technical milestones. Now, with this funding, they can grow the team strategically, bring on domain experts, and scale platform development across verticals.
Building a World-Class Team in Europe
Although TopK maintains headquarters in San Francisco, the company builds most of its technology in Europe, particularly in Prague. The founders believe that Europe holds a strong technical talent pool, especially in distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, and modern languages like Rust.
“Europe has a deep pool of engineers with experience in building databases and scalable platforms,” said Lejko. “We are building a team in Prague and looking for developers and platform engineers who aren’t afraid of complexity and want to reimagine search from the ground up.”
TopK seeks not only engineers but also technical leaders who can own key areas of the product and drive them forward. The company wants people who understand broader systems and enjoy solving foundational problems in information retrieval.
The Future of Intelligent Retrieval
TopK’s long-term vision involves pushing the boundaries of search beyond its traditional limits. The team wants to support multi-modal data, including text, images, and documents, while also enhancing its ability to interpret natural language queries.
By investing in AI capabilities, TopK aims to deliver a query engine that doesn’t just match keywords or vectors but truly understands user intent and context. This leap forward will allow AI agents, chatbots, and intelligent assistants to deliver better results with less overhead for developers.
In a world flooded with data, search becomes the gateway to everything—information, decision-making, personalization, and automation. TopK wants to become the foundation layer for that gateway.
Conclusion
TopK has positioned itself at the intersection of AI, search, and developer infrastructure. With €4.6 million in Seed funding, a visionary team, and a technically ambitious platform, the startup is well on its way to transforming how the world thinks about data retrieval.
As companies continue to adopt AI-native tools and face growing search complexity, TopK offers a unified, powerful, and intelligent solution that meets modern demands. With a strong engineering base in Prague and global ambitions, TopK stands ready to build the next generation of search—faster, smarter, and at scale.
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