London logistics start-up PORT has raised €14.5m in a mix of equity and debt led by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Balnord, taking total funding to €29m. The money will build an AI driving system and delivery robots on top of its 24 micro-hubs in London, Manchester and Birmingham.
Founded in 2020 by chief executive Kamil Suda, chief technology officer Matas Simonavicius and chief operating officer Dmitri Liberman, PORT rents e-bikes to delivery couriers on subscription. The bikes are stored and charged at micro-hubs close to areas of high delivery demand. The company announced the round on Tuesday.
The network spans 24 sites in underground car parks, warehouses and railway arches, totalling about 52,000 sq ft. More than 50,000 couriers have signed up, the fleet stands at roughly 3,500 e-bikes and it has covered more than 50 million kilometres since 2024.
The EBRD and Balnord led the round, with existing and new investors following. PORT has not said how the €14.5m splits between equity and debt, and terms were not disclosed. The company previously raised €14.5m across pre-seed and seed rounds, so the new money matches everything it had raised before.
The funding will go into new technology, with the balance going to its core rental business, Tech Funding News reported. The company employs 76 people and plans to accelerate hiring in research and development and AI.
The technology bet rests on data the fleet already gathers. Part of the fleet carries Nvidia-powered cameras and lidar, so each courier shift records footage of kerbs, cyclists and drop-off points.
The data uploads over fibre when a bike returns to a hub and is used to train what PORT calls its AI Driver, the software intended to run its own robots. Faces and number plates are blurred on the device, according to Suda.
The first commercial test will come through Royal Mail, with which PORT is preparing a new robotic delivery system. Suda said the first robot should be operating within months, starting with parcels. Cargo-bike trailers, introduced in September 2025, have already carried more than 300,000 parcels.
"We believe robotised logistics does not start with the robot," Suda said, arguing that infrastructure, operations and data have to come first. Ervin Luga, head of venture capital investments at the EBRD, said a lack of real-world data had held back driverless delivery and that PORT was "actively building that data".
Location underpins the model. Robots need to be stored, loaded and charged within a few miles of the delivery address, and in London PORT says its hubs already cover 92% of the area within one mile of the Congestion Charge zone. A central Paris hub, its first outside the UK, is due to open before the end of 2026.
Suda expects delivery robot hardware, and to a degree the autonomy software, to become commoditised over the next few years, and argues that PORT's edge lies in its hub network. "We believe distribution wins," he said.
Original source: EU-Startups — https://www.eu-startups.com/2026/11/port-raises-e14-5-million-to-develop-ai-powered-autonomous-delivery-robots-from-courier-network/
