A United Kingdom-based startup is ready to relay a new message: it has scored a $35 million Series A.
Relay, which focuses on integrating technology to upgrade the speed and sustainability considerations behind last-mile logistics for e-commerce, announced its fundraising Thursday.
Plural led the Series A round, supported by Relay’s seed investors, Prologis Ventures and Project A.
The London-based company wants to revolutionize last-mile logistics for e-commerce using data, artificial intelligence and physical infrastructure. According to a LinkedIn post from Taavet Hinrikus, partner at Plural, Relay plans to operate 10 small sortation centers throughout the United Kingdom, and dispatch parcels from those locations to small businesses and corner stores—what he calls “pit stops”—where gig economy workers will pick the packages up to deliver them to consumers’ doorsteps.
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That, the company contends, can help reduce the carbon footprint of last-mile logistics, which, in many cases, relies on long, planned, start-and-stop delivery routes daily via truck or cargo van. Investors noted that Relay’s technology and strategy has the ability to axe travel distances by up to 95 percent by using hyperlocal nodes to streamline the delivery process.
Today, Hinrikus said, the company has already secured contracts with the likes of Vinted, TikTok, Temu, ASOS and UK e-tailer THG. Partnering with high-volume businesses enables Relay to scale quickly, and Hinrikus expects that, once the technology and infrastructure has been further built out, the startup will be able to take on small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) as clients, as well.
But, for the moment, it appears business at scale is off to a promising start—Hinrikus noted that three of the aforementioned companies sought to invest in the Series A because they feel Relay can truly disrupt the last-mile logistics market.
“They, like us, see the potential for this startup to compete with juggernauts that run this industry like DHL and UPS,” he wrote.
While Relay uses technology to streamline last-mile delivery planning, it also works with those making the deliveries to ensure compliance. Last year, it launched its generative AI-powered Courier Training Tool, which it claims has amped proof-of-delivery compliance by about 82 percent, in turn saving its clients money and hassle on fraudulent claims, delivery issues and other problems often associated with e-commerce.
Jonathan Jenssen and Nicole Mazza, the company’s founders, plan to use the funds to further build out the logistical infrastructure to make their promises possible. Relay is already operational in London and Manchester, England, but it plans to activate new geographies throughout the UK this year and next, Jenssen said.
“At Relay, we’re using technology to build critical logistics infrastructure that brings down costs while improving delivery speed and reliability. We’ve already proven this model with some of the UK’s largest ecommerce retailers, and with support from our partners and investors, we’re ready to scale our network across the country and beyond,” Jenssen said in a statement.
As Relay prepares to scale further, e-commerce demand only continues to increase. Forrester’s projections predict that, by 2028, global retail e-commerce sales will hit $6.8 trillion, making up nearly one-fourth of all global retail sales.
Consumers also have a hunger for the type of marketplaces Relay already works with; data from eMarketer projects that Temu’s U.S. marketplace sales will increase by 59 percent in 2025, hitting more than $30 billion, and the company has aggressively worked to foster rapid growth in other markets, including the UK. In that market, Temu has pushed an increase in local fulfillment. According to Backlinko, which tracks web traffic, Temu has about 13.1 million monthly active users in the UK, which is up 16.3 percent year on year.
Philipp Werner, partner at Project A, seems convinced that it already has the technical foundations needed to please its clients and meet the challenges of tomorrow.
“Traditional delivery solutions are designed for a brick-and-mortar world and are struggling to keep up with modern commerce. The rise of peer-to-peer selling and new e-commerce models demands a smarter approach: shorter shipping distances, consolidated deliveries, and automated workflows,” Werner wrote in a LinkedIn post.
