UK urban logistics company PORT has raised €14.5 million in combined equity and debt financing to fund its shift from e-bike delivery subscriptions toward autonomous robots, bringing its total funding to €29 million. The round was led by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Balnord, with existing and new investors also participating, the company said on November 10.
PORT currently serves more than 50,000 couriers across London, Manchester and Birmingham through a fleet of roughly 3,500 e-bikes and 24 microhubs occupying about 52,000 square feet of underground car parks, warehouses and converted railway arches, according to Tech.eu. Select bikes in that fleet already carry Nvidia-powered cameras and lidar sensors, which the company uses to collect real-world urban delivery data ahead of deploying its own autonomous vehicles.
Infrastructure first, robots second
PORT's pitch inverts how most delivery-robot startups approach the market. Rather than building a robot and looking for routes to run it on, founder and CEO Kamil Suda has built the microhub network, courier relationships and delivery data first, treating the robot itself as the last piece rather than the first. "We believe robotised logistics does not start with the robot; it starts with the infrastructure, operations and data required to put robotics to work in the real world," Suda said.
That sequencing matters because last-mile delivery robots have repeatedly struggled with the unglamorous parts of the business: charging infrastructure, loading docks, regulatory sign-off for sidewalk or road use, and the dense data needed to navigate unpredictable urban streets. PORT's existing network of 24 microhubs and thousands of daily e-bike routes gives it a built-in testbed and a revenue-generating business that can subsidize autonomous vehicle development, rather than needing to raise purely on the promise of future robots.
Where the money goes next
PORT plans to use the new capital to expand its "AI Driver" program and accelerate autonomous vehicle development, alongside a push to grow its AI and R&D teams. The company has also signaled a partnership with Royal Mail focused on robotic delivery systems, suggesting its first commercial autonomous routes could run through postal logistics rather than direct-to-consumer retail delivery.
The round lands at a moment when last-mile delivery automation is attracting capital from multiple angles — drone delivery from Wing and Zipline, sidewalk robots from Serve Robotics and Starship, and now ground vehicles built on top of existing courier networks. PORT's bet is that owning the physical and data infrastructure first gives it a faster, cheaper path to autonomy than competitors starting from a clean-sheet robot design. Whether that infrastructure-led approach beats robot-first rivals to commercial autonomous deliveries in the UK remains untested.