Two founders, one failed startup, and a delivery industry nobody had bothered to rebuild. That's the short version of how HIVED got here. The longer version is a masterclass in spotting the gap everyone else walked past and it starts with a question a lot of people are now typing into Google: how does HIVED make money?
The answer is simpler than the hype suggests. HIVED runs on B2B per-parcel contracts with e-commerce retailers, all delivered through a fleet that never touches diesel. But the story of how it got there and whether it's actually beating the couriers it's built to replace is worth slowing down for.
What Is HIVED?
HIVED is a London-based, fully electric parcel delivery company built specifically for e-commerce, founded in 2021 by Murvah Iqbal and Mathias Krieger.
Before HIVED, Iqbal and Krieger ran a different business entirely: Vanvas, an outdoor-advertising startup that sold ad space on the sides of delivery vans. It failed within a year. But the pair had spent that year staring at delivery-route data, and what they saw was an industry with dire customer satisfaction scores and systems that hadn't changed in decades.
So they rebuilt it from scratch. HIVED now delivers for Nespresso, Zara, Uniqlo, John Lewis, H&M, Liberty of London and ASOS a client list that reads like a shortlist of brands that can't afford a bad doorstep moment. Every one of those parcels moves on an entirely electric network, from warehouse to front door.
The Last-Mile Delivery Problem
UK parcel delivery has a trust problem, and the numbers back it up. Roughly two-thirds of people (68%) said they'd experienced an issue with a delivery in the previous six months, according to a 2025 Ofcom survey and the UK delivered 4.1 billion parcels in 2024/25 alone, so that dissatisfaction is happening at genuine scale.
Citizens Advice found much the same thing from a different angle: more than a third of people (37%) faced a problem with their most recent delivery in November 2025, the highest rate its parcel league table has recorded in five years. Nearly half of those people then struggled to get the problem resolved.
This is the gap HIVED was built to fill. Ofcom's own performance survey found Evri did worst of all major carriers on customer service, with Yodel close behind the two names most associated with the "where's my parcel" anxiety HIVED has built its entire pitch around solving.
How Does HIVED Make Money? Per-Parcel B2B Contracts
HIVED makes money through B2B contracts with e-commerce retailers, who pay per parcel to route their delivery leg through HIVED's electric network rather than a legacy courier. It's not a consumer subscription and there's no marketplace fee retailers sign on, and HIVED becomes their delivery layer.
That contract-based model has been growing outward in two directions since 2025:
- HIVED One — a version of the service aimed specifically at small businesses, opening the model to brands that couldn't previously negotiate enterprise-scale delivery terms.
- HIVED Haulage — a large-scale transport offering that extends HIVED beyond last-mile drop-offs into middle-mile logistics, powered in part by a Mercedes-Benz partnership bringing electric eActros trucks onto UK roads.
Both moves point the same direction: HIVED isn't just trying to out-deliver Evri and DPD on the last mile. It's trying to own more of the journey a parcel takes before it ever reaches a doorstep. The company backed that expansion with a $42 million Series B round in July 2025, led by NordicNinja capital explicitly earmarked for scaling the electric network and the technology behind it.
The All-Electric, Net-Zero Angle
HIVED's fleet runs on batteries, not diesel, across both last-mile vans and middle-mile HGVs, a claim few UK couriers can make at the same scale. The company reports a 99% on-time delivery rate and says it has delivered more than 6.5 million parcels since launch, figures that come from HIVED itself rather than independent audit, but which line up with the retailer roster it's retained.
HIVED became a certified B Corporation in August 2025 one of the few parcel delivery companies in its category to earn the accreditation, and a meaningful trust signal in a sector where "sustainable" is often marketing rather than fact. Combined with the Mercedes-Benz eActros partnership, it's a genuinely electric operation end to end, not just on the final leg.
HIVED vs Evri vs DPD
HIVED currently has higher Trustpilot ratings than Evri and DPD but is still a fraction of their size. On Trustpilot, HIVED holds a 4.8-star rating from around 13,000 reviews, ahead of DPD's 4.4 (from roughly 3 million reviews) and Evri's 4.1 (from around 6 million). Evri, worth remembering, is simply Hermes under a new name; the rebrand didn't change the underlying network.
That review-volume gap matters. HIVED reviews look stronger on paper, but they're built on a much smaller sample than the couriers moving billions of parcels a year, so the comparison is encouraging rather than conclusive.
HIVED reviews on Trustpilot present one view of customer satisfaction, while independent complaint websites highlight recurring issues reported by some customers. Independent complaint sites tell a rougher story: smaller, self-selecting samples of dissatisfied customers citing missed or misdelivered parcels, Many of the complaints relate to missed deliveries, delayed parcels and incorrect drop-offs.
Anyone asking, is HIVED legit should weigh both sides: strong, verifiable satisfaction data from a widely-used review platform, alongside the same complaint patterns any scaling delivery firm accumulates. On balance, is HIVED legit turns out to be a question of scale rather than trust HIVED simply hasn't delivered at the volume where Evri and Yodel rack up their complaint counts. On the employee side, Glassdoor reviews from HIVED's London drivers sit at 3.6 out of 5, with 65% saying they'd recommend the job respectable, not spotless.
The Bottom Line
HIVED is now the UK's second-ranked startup, climbing from fourth to second place in the Startups 100 2026 Index. That's a serious signal of momentum in a crowded field, though HIVED is privately held and hasn't disclosed profit or loss figures, so no outside source can currently confirm whether the business is profitable.
For founders and shoppers weighing it up, HIVED reviews point to a delivery company punching well above its current size. What is clear is the shape of the answer to how HIVED makes money: a B2B, per-parcel model, running on an all-electric fleet, expanding into small-business and haulage contracts, backed by real institutional capital. Whether that model scales past London and its new southern cities into a genuine national threat to Evri and DPD is the question the next eighteen months will answer.
FAQs
1. How does HIVED make money?
HIVED generates revenue by providing parcel delivery services to e-commerce retailers under commercial B2B contracts. Although the company has not publicly disclosed its pricing or contract terms, it has expanded beyond enterprise retailers with the launch of HIVED One for small businesses and HIVED Haulage for middle-mile transport since 2025.
2. Is HIVED legit?
Yes HIVED holds a 4.8-star Trustpilot rating from around 13,000 reviews, ahead of both Evri and DPD, though from a smaller sample than either. Independent complaint sites show the same patterns any fast-scaling courier attracts, but nothing that undermines the strength of its core reviews.
3. How is HIVED different from Evri and DPD?
HIVED runs an entirely electric fleet across last-mile and middle-mile delivery, while Evri and DPD rely on mixed conventional fleets. Ofcom's 2025 customer service survey ranked Evri worst among major UK carriers, and HIVED currently holds a stronger Trustpilot rating, albeit from a much smaller review base.
Also Read: Startup Term Sheet Checklist: 5 Questions to Ask First
Sources: Data drawn from Ofcom's 2025 parcel delivery performance survey, Citizens Advice's November 2025 parcel league table, Trustpilot, Glassdoor, the Startups 100 2026 Index, and company statements from HIVED. Figures reflect the most recent available data at the time of writing.
The EP+ Editorial Desk covers UK startups, founder stories, and venture capital. All editorial content is independently produced and human-reviewed before publication.
