A London all-electric parcel delivery start-up that uses AI route planning and electric vans to deliver online orders for retailers.
Hived is a London delivery company that was built for parcels from online shopping rather than letters. It collects from retailers' warehouses, moves parcels to local hubs in electric trucks, and makes the final delivery in electric vans. It started with bikes in 2021. Its software, called HIVEDmind, tracks parcels in real time and plans routes around local conditions such as gated buildings, narrow courtyards and where drivers can park. Customers named in a 2025 report include John Lewis, Nespresso, Uniqlo and Zara, and the company reports 6.5 million parcels delivered with a 99 per cent on-time rate, which are its own figures.
Hived says it exists because parcel delivery systems were designed for a world before the internet and need to be rebuilt for e-commerce. It was founded in 2021 by Murvah Iqbal, a former Manchester City youth team captain who became its chief executive, and by chief technology officer Mathias Krieger. The pages we could read do not set out a formal list of values, so we have not made one up. Its target, as reported in 2025, is to cover 80 per cent of the UK within two years.
London is its home base. A 2025 report said it would expand across the south of England from September 2025, starting with Bristol, Bath and Brighton, followed by Birmingham and Manchester in the second half of 2026. Those are plans reported at the time, not confirmed openings. Seedtable's UK list also places it in London. We did not find a street address or a list of depots on the pages read.
On people, the same report said Hived employed more than 120 people and that about 20 per cent of its staff began as delivery drivers, which suggests people can move up inside the company. Its founder's sporting background is mentioned in coverage, but little else about its culture is published on the pages we read, so this is a gap. The mix of roles is clear from the business, though: drivers and hub staff, route and operations planners, data and software engineers who build the AI tools, customer teams that work with retailers, and finance and people teams.
For a student, Hived is an example of a young company trying to change an everyday service. If you are interested in how parcels travel, in electric vehicles or in using data to solve practical problems, it shows how technology and old-fashioned hard work come together. Because it is expanding city by city, new local jobs are likely to appear in the places it enters, though the timing is the company's plan rather than a promise.
Website: www.hived.co
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