HIVED Raises $42 Million for All-Electric Delivery Network

eCommerce logistics platform HIVED has raised $42 million in new funding.

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.

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