London-based Hived has raised $42m to expand its AI-powered parcel delivery service, which counts the likes of John Lewis, Uniqlo and Zara as customers.
The round was led by NordicNinja and included participation from Wex Venture Capital, Marunouchi Innovation Partners, Elemental Impact, Yamato Holdings, Future Back Ventures by Bain and Co, Rocketship VC and existing investors including Planet A. The company previously raised £10m in 2023.
“Parcel delivery has a reputation as quite a bad service in the UK,” says cofounder Murvah Iqbal. Hived, which currently delivers parcels in the Greater London area, aims to use AI to be more reliable and efficient than the incumbent delivery firms.
Iqbal says Hived’s revenues grew 300% year-on-year to 2024, though declines to share specific figures. Ecommerce is a growing market: the number of purchases made online doubled over the last decade to 27% in 2024, according to the Office for National Statistics.
From Man City to parcels
Iqbal cofounded Hived in 2021, before which she had captained Manchester City’s youth team and headed up marketing for her family’s fast-food restaurant chain, Archie’s. Her cofounder, Mathias Krieger, previously founded an advertising startup.
Hived runs an end-to-end delivery service, providing vans, drivers and the software that routes them. Iqbal says Hived’s secret sauce is its software system.
The company collects and analyses data from every delivery, to build quicker routes for drivers. “Google maps only takes you so far. It takes you to a postcode, but which door?” Iqbal says. “We’re collecting loads of data to understand which is the best path for a delivery drive to go.”
Hived’s algorithm helps it to match its service to demand in a way incumbents aren’t, Iqbal says: it can forecast, for example, how many drivers will be needed in a particular area each day on a more micro-level.
Zero emissions
Although Hived solely uses electric vehicles, it doesn’t market itself as a greener delivery service.
“If we’re building a network that’s going to exist for the next hundreds of years, it has to default be electric, but you only win customers by having a superior product,” says Iqbal. “You don’t win in this world by just being green,” she says
The company will use its latest investment to expand into more cities in the south of England, and to scale its data and commercial teams.
You can hear more from Murvah Iqbal at the Sifted Summit, taking place in London on October 8–9. Iqbal will be talking about how CEOs can move from startup to scaleup. You can grab tickets to the Summit here.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/hived-42m-parcel-delivery/
