UK AI-Driven Delivery Startup Hived Raises $42M for Nationwide Expansion

UK delivery startup Hived raises $42 million to expand network

LONDON, July 3 (Reuters) - UK parcel delivery startup Hived, which uses AI to help manage its network, said on Thursday that it has raised $42 million in funding from investors to expand its operations across most of Britain over the next two years. The Series B round of funding was led by Japanese-backed venture capital firm NordicNinja and included investments from Wex Venture Capital, Marunouchi Innovation Partners and Elemental Impact. Hived, which uses an entirely-electric fleet of delivery vans and heavy goods vehicles, has signed up retailers including John Lewis, Uniqlo, Zara, and Nespresso for e-commerce deliveries. The company is one of a number of startups that are using electric vehicles to meet demand for low emission deliveries. The new funding will be used to expand Hived's delivery network outside London, CEO Murvah Iqbal said. She said that starting later this year, Hived will serve southern UK cities, before expanding rapidly to the rest of the country. "We aim to cover 80% of the UK within the next two years," she said. "That's what we're on track for." The company will also consider whether to expand physically into other markets or instead licence out its technology, she added. Hived has used AI to develop its own postcode system based on customer volume and demand. The same system also collects data on deliveries that is used to mentor drivers, Iqbal said. "Every day, a driver will receive some feedback to help them perform better," she said. Reporting By Nick Carey; editing by Barbara Lewis Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab Suggested Topics:Retail & ConsumerADAS, AV & SafetyEV BatterySustainable & EV Supply Chain

UK-based AI-driven parcel delivery startup Hived raises $42M - SiliconANGLE

London-based parcel delivery startup Hived Ltd.today said it has raised $42 million in early-stage funding aimed at supporting the company's expansion into regional markets, hiring more staff and enhancing its HIVEDmind AI logistics platform. The Series B round was led by NordicNinja with participation from Wex Venture Capital, Marunouchi Innovation Partners, Elemental Impact, Yamato Holdings, Future Back Ventures by Bain & Co. and Rocketship VC. Purpose-built for ecommerce, Hived said it strives to replace legacy delivery logistics and relieve what it sees as anxiety on the side of recipients and retailers by integrating directly with modern architecture to connect retailers, warehouses, drivers and end customers. It does so by using real-time warehouse sorting with route optimization to adapt driver behavior for real-world situations. Hived calls this anxiety on the side of end customers "Where Is My Order," or WISMO. This type of inquiry, compared with other carriers, and its claims rate for lost-in-transit, damages and so on, is more than 10 times better than other industry standards. "Parcel delivery should feel seamless, not stressful, but most of the industry is still running on systems that were never designed for e-commerce," said co-founder and Chief Executive Murvah Iqbal. According to the company, since 2021, Hived has delivered more than 6.5 million parcels across Greater London for retailers such as John Lewis Partnership plc, Nestlé Nespresso S.A., Uniqlo Co. Ltd. and Zara, with 99% on-time delivery. The company's AI models, working under the moniker HIVEDmind, act to update based on delivery volumes, route patterns dynamically, how long deliveries take in certain neighborhoods, where bottlenecks can occur such as courtyards or gated buildings can cause delays, or even where it's best to park based on real-world data. This can assist drivers and couriers on how best to pack their vehicles and map routes. "Today's customers want fast, convenient, personalized experiences, with sustainability at their core," said Anna Lundstrom, CEO of Nespresso for the U.K. and Ireland. "For many, receiving a parcel from Nespresso is their very first physical interaction with the brand and Hived's clear, dynamic live tracking and seamless delivery build a sense of trust and reliability." Hived also operates a 100% electric fleet of vehicles. The company said it focuses heavily on sustainable architecture and is intent on scaling a delivery network that can deliver an outstanding experience for both shoppers and retail partners. Iqbal said the funding puts the company on track to scale across the U.K., which has the third-largest e-commerce market in the world, after China and the United States. He added that the company intends to accelerate the rollout of its services, grow its engineering and data team and scale the development of its intelligence platform to support that goal.

UK delivery startup Hived raises $42 million to expand network - The Economic Times

The Series B round of funding was led by Japanese-backed venture capital firm NordicNinja and included investments from Wex Venture Capital, Marunouchi Innovation Partners and Elemental Impact.UK parcel delivery startup Hived, which uses AI to help manage its network, said on Thursday that it has raised $42 million in funding from investors to expand its operations across most of Britain over the next two years. The Series B round of funding was led by Japanese-backed venture capital firm NordicNinja and included investments from Wex Venture Capital, Marunouchi Innovation Partners and Elemental Impact. Hived, which uses an entirely-electric fleet of delivery vans and heavy goods vehicles, has signed up retailers including John Lewis, Uniqlo, Zara, and Nespresso for e-commerce deliveries. The company is one of a number of startups that are using electric vehicles to meet demand for low emission deliveries. The new funding will be used to expand Hived's delivery network outside London, CEO Murvah Iqbal said. She said that starting later this year, Hived will serve southern UK cities, before expanding rapidly to the rest of the country. "We aim to cover 80% of the UK within the next two years," she said. "That's what we're on track for." The company will also consider whether to expand physically into other markets or instead licence out its technology, she added. Hived has used AI to develop its own postcode system based on customer volume and demand. The same system also collects data on deliveries that is used to mentor drivers, Iqbal said. "Every day, a driver will receive some feedback to help them perform better," she said.

HIVED Raises $42 Million For All-Electric Delivery Network | PYMNTS.com

The U.K.-based company said its Series B round, announced Monday (July 7), will allow it to scale nationwide as it builds an all-electric delivery network. "The U.K. has the third-largest eCommerce market in the world, after China and the U.S., responsible for ~10% of our GDP with incumbent logistics firms retro-fitting for eCommerce by shifting their legacy systems," the company wrote in the post. "In contrast, HIVED has built its parcel delivery network explicitly for eCommerce, from the ground up. Our HIVEDmind platform uses AI, real-time data, and modern architecture to connect retailers, warehouses, drivers and end customers like never before, through a single, integrated, fully synchronized end-to-end system," the company added. PYMNTS examined the role artificial intelligence (AI) can play in improving eCommerce earlier this year with Scott Hendrickson and Kumar Senthil, co-founders of agentic AI merchant network firmly. "If an AI agent can compress browsing, selection and checkout into the same dialogue, retailers that sit outside the conversation risk ceding both visibility and sales," that report said. "Behind the scenes of that are the software agents empowered not merely to fetch information but to take actions on the customer's behalf, from adding an item to cart to completing payment." The technology combines a large language model's (LLM) ability to understand natural-language requests with direct links to merchant catalogs and payment rails. "What consumers really want is for commerce to happen immediately," Hendrickson said in an interview with PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster. "People's time has never been more valuable, and they expect things to be frictionless." Hendrickson and Senthil said the move from search to suggestion to settlement is the next logical step in eCommerce's evolution. Social media already woos users with one-click purchases of impulse items they "didn't know they wanted," Hendrickson added, pointing to TikTok Shop's ascendency as proof that contextually embedded commerce can move a large number of goods. In other logistics-related news, PYMNTS spoke recently with Gregory Tink, director of industrial digital transformation at Schneider Electric, about his company's AI-driven update. "We continue to look for ways to continuously improve with regard to sustainability and how we impact the world, in pursuing electrification, automation, and digital being that other pillar in that three-legged chair," Tink said. "All three of those together need to be combined to really push industry forward." At the core of this effort is the company's updating of its supply chain, where AI and data-driven insights are helping Schneider drive resilience at a time of persistent disruption. With all the volatility in the world, the company employs data to manage demand forecasting and plan production in the "right places at the right time," Tink said.