UniUni Secures USD $70M in Capital Over Four Months to Fuel Future of Delivery

UniUni ranked fourth in the Globe and Mail’s 2023 list of top growing Canadian companies, with a three-year growth rate of more than 12,000 per cent.

Nice, but not enough for founder and chief executive officer Peter Lu, who carries an ambitious goal for his company: Achieve the famed $1 billion “unicorn” status by 2025.

En route this track, the Richmond-based delivery technology upstart last year raised $20 million in Series B financing from Celtic House Venture Partners, Freshwave Capital, and others to power a logistics platform that leverages the gig economy to optimize what the industry refers to as “last-mile delivery.”

That adds up a total of US$60 million in funding entering 2024.

Nice, but not enough for the rapidly growing UniUni, which started expanding geographically last year, including south of the border into the US.

This week the Canadian company announced that it has raised US$50 million in an oversubscribed Series C financing round led by global venture capital firm DCM.

“These funds will be used to further develop our proprietary tech stack that powers our logistics platform and to grow our network of sorting centers as we continue to expand delivery coverage across the United States,” stated Lu.

The milestone marks UniUni’s largest funding round to date, bringing the company’s total raise north of US$100M, including US$70M in the past half-year alone.

“In just a few years, UniUni has emerged, embracing a new model of last-mile delivery that uses technology to provide the most reliable and cost-effective logistics service available,” stated Ramon Zeng, General Partner at DCM, “and we’re happy to support them as they continue expanding across the U.S. and North America.”

Founded in 2019, UniUni delivers tens of millions of parcels annually from Coast to Coast in Canada, and boasts more than 50 distribution centres throughout North America, with over 6,000 drivers in Canada alone.

“The North American logistics market is ripe for innovation,” believes Lu. “The traditional logistics firms were born before the digital age, and their dated infrastructure cannot keep up with the accelerating demands of the e-commerce era.”

According to Pitney Bowes Parcel Shipping Index Report, 21 billion parcels were shipped in the U.S. in 2022, or 58 million per day. Parcel revenue reached US$198 billion.

“On a global scale, North American e-commerce is still at a very early stage,” Lu says, “and we expect online retail to continue to grow and become the primary method of shopping for most Americans in the next five to 10 years.”

According to U.S. Census Bureau data, e-commerce sales are rising significantly faster than traditional retail sales, suggesting it remains the future of commerce.

“UniUni’s rapid growth and strategic expansion uniquely position it to address the pressing demands of a new generation of e-commerce platforms, online retailers, and brands effectively,” Lu said.

DCM is a global venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley and Tokyo with $4 billion under management and investments in 400 early-stage technology companies globally.