Prague, February 24, 2026 – Video that responds to users in real time is something companies are still unable to create. That is precisely what ValkaAI aims to change. The company has raised €12 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Rockaway Ventures, with participation from J&T Ventures, Tensor Ventures, BD Partners, and Fond Naše Česko. The investment ranks among the most significant pre-seed rounds in the region and represents a key bet by Rockaway Ventures, a fund focused on strategic AI technologies with the potential to reshape entire industries.
From day one, ValkaAI has positioned itself as a global venture, with teams across the United States, Europe, and the United Arab Emirates, and the ambition to build the world’s leading AI video company from the Czech Republic. The company’s platform could open the door for businesses to deploy digital avatars capable of conducting fully controlled, real-time, personalized interactions with users, at a scale that is currently impossible without a dramatic increase in costs.
Built on Founders’ Experience and a Growing Technology Team
ValkaAI builds on the experience of its founders, Vlastimil Venclík and Miloš Lokajíček, who are building out the company’s technology team. Venclík previously founded and grew Oddin.gg and Hodei, a platform that has become a global leader in e-sports predictive technology and data infrastructure. In 2024, Oddin.gg became the overall winner of the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Central Europe ranking as the fastest-growing technology company in Central Europe, achieving a growth of 7,958 percent and winning the ranking again the following year.
Lokajíček, ValkaAI’s COO, brings deep experience in operating and scaling technology products, including AI startups. He is responsible for execution and the project’s global expansion.
Both founders have long been tracking the shift of digital content toward greater interactivity and deeper user engagement, inspired by the gaming industry and the new possibilities enabled by artificial intelligence. In their view, video is gradually ceasing to function as a finished product and is instead becoming an interface that users can interact with, adapt to context, and use to engage with each individual viewer.
In response to this shift, ValkaAI aims to create technology for on-demand content: media content generated in real time and tailored to a specific situation, overcoming the technical limitations of pre-produced linear video. The company’s core product will be a platform that enables entertainment industry players to create digital environments and AI avatars with which users can actively interact.
“Today’s experience is still largely linear – you just hit play and watch. We believe the next step is real-time environments users can step into, where content is no longer just consumed but actively shaped,“ says Vlastimil Venclík, co-founder and CEO of ValkaAI.
High Quality Without Sacrificing Speed
The ValkaAI team is currently focused on developing fully controlled, real-time AI synthesis of motion and visuals. Instead of generating entire video segments at once, which is slow and computationally demanding, the system works with an efficient representation, a ‘language of motion,’ and a proprietary control model that maintains visual consistency across frames.
This approach allows the system to generate each frame independently, based on real-time user inputs such as voice, gestures, or in-game events, and without the typical issues associated with generative video, including flickering, deformation, or visual breakdown.
In e-sports, this technology could take the form of an AI commentator that reacts to in-game action in real time, speaks the viewer’s language, and adapts to their viewing style. The same principle can be applied to digital characters and virtual environments that dynamically evolve based on user behavior.
“Our technology opens the door to an entirely new range of applications – from interactive sports simulations to live broadcasts that are localized, personalized, and responsive to specific audiences in real time,” says Miloš Lokajíček, co-founder and COO of ValkaAI.
“ValkaAI is tackling a difficult but fundamental challenge – combining visual quality with speed and true real-time interactivity. This is not just another application. It provides the foundation for a new generation of entertainment,” says Petr Šmíd, General Partner at Rockaway Ventures, progressive part of the newly established Rockaway Fund within Rockaway Capital.
“The founder plays a central role,” Šmíd adds. “Vlasta Venclík has a clear vision, deep technological understanding, and has already proven his ability to build a global business and attract top talent. That’s why we believe ValkaAI has the potential to redefine how people consume sports, e-sports, and other forms of entertainment and create an entirely new, standalone category.”
What the Investment Enables
“The €12 million investment is exceptional for a pre-seed round in Central and Eastern Europe and reflects ValkaAI’s ambition to build a globally relevant technology platform, but more importantly, it reflects our confidence in the team behind ValkaAI,” says David Polach of J&T Ventures. “We believe there will be more stories like this coming out of the Czech Republic,” Polach adds.
From the outset, ValkaAI has positioned itself as an international project, with teams in both the United States and Europe, and with the goal of building a world leader in AI video from the Czech Republic.
According to the founders, the AI video segment still offers significantly more technological headroom than text-based models, which are already quite mature. The funding round also represents the startup’s first external capital at this stage. Additional investors include J&T Ventures, Tensor Ventures, BD Partners, Fond Naše Česko and investor Petr Zámečník.
“This is groundbreaking deep tech that will have a major impact not just in entertainment, but in many other areas that most people can’t yet imagine,” says Dan Hastík of Tensor Ventures.
The funding will be used to strengthen the research and product teams, advance core technologies for real-time digital characters and AI commentators, and support the first commercial implementations in sports and e-sports. In the coming months, the team will focus on building the platform’s core, scaling computational infrastructure, and delivering pilot integrations in segments where ValkaAI has the strongest expertise and access to distribution channels.
“ValkaAI is a long-term project for us. Not a quick hack, but the construction of a technological foundation for a new generation of entertainment. Pre-seed financing allows us to bring top-tier specialists into development, scale infrastructure, and validate the first concrete use cases with strong partners,” adds Miloš Lokajíček.