Europe’s Relay pulls in $35M Series A after applying Asia’s model to delivery

Being somewhat later than Europe in adopting the idea of parcel delivery, much of Asia built its delivery infrastructure around e-commerce, effectively “Uberizing” how deliveries worked down to the last mile. Think DoorDash but for parcels, not food. This is what the founders of Europe’s Relay realized and decided to bring to the region — and why investors just gave it a massive Series A round. Most Western parcel delivery companies have fixed daily routes for drivers, dispatching them from far-flung depots near places like airports to suburban destinations. This creates enormous overhead, wastes mileage, and increases carbon emissions for parcels, especially if they are returned. Instead, Asia’s “asset-free” model uses mini-depots, like a local store. Relay’s end-to-end parcel delivery service adopts this approach, operating more like a food delivery app. It matches couriers to routes, combines deliveries and returns into a single trip, and replaces large trucks with carbon-reducing ... Read full article.