Jennifer Sieg meets Murvah Iqbal, founder of sustainable parcel delivery start-up Hived, to discuss what she sees as the future for the UK’s parcel delivery industry.
How often do you find yourself frustrated with your local parcel delivery service?
If you’re an avid online shopper, my guess would be at least a few times a month, if not a few times each week.
Murvah Iqbal, however, is the 28-year-old entrepreneur on a mission to relieve that consumer frustration.
In 2021, Iqbal founded Hived, a zero-emission parcel delivery service, alongside her co-founder, Mathias Krieger, with a goal to make delivery services easier and more efficient for retailers and consumers.
Hived has since delivered millions of parcels to customers across Greater London, now working with several well-known retailers such as Nespresso, Asos and Zara.
The start-up claims to have hit the ground running from the start, with a steady rate of 20 per cent revenue growth month-over-month.
But what edge can Hived bring in this highly competitive market – worth £16.4bn – already dominated by couriers like Evri and Yodel?
How it works
Hived’s now-75-person team is on an ambitious mission to do things a bit differently.
Iqbal says her goal from the start was to not only create a new high standard for the industry – an industry that has boomed in recent years – but also prove it possible that it can be planet-friendly, too.
“You can think of it as a sort of a direct replacement for the legacy players in this market,” Iqbal says.
Hived is known for its emission-free deliveries, which Iqbal says is a dedication that can be seen from every operation, end-to-end.
A lot of these brands and retailers have to really figure out how to de-carbonise their whole supply chain and Hived does that end-to-end.
She adds: “We collect from nationwide – whether it’s Zara’s warehouse in the middle of the country – we collect entirely electric, bring that to our hub, and it goes out for delivery entirely electric.
“There’s a few players and some people doing the last mile delivery part 100 per cent electric but actually running a big national fleet of trucks up and down the country, we are, to our knowledge, the only companies that are doing that at scale.”
Technology with purpose
In order to do things right, Iqbal says she knew that a new and innovative technology solution would be the major driver for her start-up’s success.
Hived’s in-house tech and data team has now built – and continues to build – new technologies from the ground up, she says, which allow the team to customise and control operations according to customer needs.
“If you look at a lot of the e-commerce players, they’ve been around for 20, 30 plus years and are built on sort of legacy software,” Iqbal says.
“We are now built on modern platform technology and purpose-built for 21st century e-commerce… that’s how we make it happen.”
The technology, she says, has paved the way for a new and improved “novel driver app” with trackers and workflow, customer engagement, complex data analysis for fair pay and ethical working conditions, as well as much more flexibility.
“We want to be able to give the recipient that feeling of trust and confidence with our delivery service – and that’s why we’re probably the highest rated on Trustpilot for any parcel delivery network now in the UK,” Iqbal says.
What’s next?
Iqbal is no stranger to managing a busy schedule.
Before setting up Hived, she worked as brand manager for her uncle’s start-up fast-food chain, now known as Archie’s, while also captaining Manchester City’s women’s youth football team.
Little did she know, it would all turn out to be worth it, because now she’s using her hard-earned skills to climb her way to the top.
“If we could sit here and have this conversation in 10 years time [when] we’ve transformed this industry and Hived is delivering every parcel [and] we’ve saved tons of carbon emissions and provide the best delivery experience – that would look like success for me,” she says, with a smile.
And after picking up £10m in funding from the likes of Planet A Ventures, Maersk Growth, Eka Ventures and Pale Blue Dot, that success might just be achievable.
CV
Name: Murvah Iqbal
Company: HIVED
Founded: 2021
Staff: 75 Head office
Title: Co-Founder & Co-CEO
Age: 28
Born: Manchester
Lives: SW London
Studied: International Development, King’s College London
Talents: Intuitive decision making
Motto: Magic happens outside of your comfort zone
Most known for: Being extremely competitive at the HIVED sports day
First ambition: Prime Minister
Favourite book: Mary Portas: Work Like a Woman
Best piece of advice: What’s the worst that can happen if you fail?