British sustainable logistics operator Fin has acquired rival Urb-it to fast track its growth in 2024.
The move comes after Stockholm-based Urb-it filed for bankruptcy in December last year and was delisted from Nasdaq.
Fin hopes that its first acquisition will cement the brand into the last-mile delivery space and further serve its commitment to zero-emission deliveries.
“The acquisition of Urb-it will significantly boost Fin’s growth in 2024. The combined company will have a broader customer base, a more comprehensive suite of logistics solutions, and a stronger track record of innovation,” Fin Co-Founder and CEO Rich Pleeth told Zag Daily.
“Our vision will always be to make cities more liveable by removing polluting vehicles from the city streets.
“We’re multi-modal and definitely not anti-van, but from our research 91% of all parcels within urban centres can be delivered by e-cargo bikes.
“Imagine taking all those polluting vans off of a city’s streets, giving it cleaner air and making it safer.”
In London, where Fin currently operates, commercial vehicles account for 19% of overall miles driven in the city and they emit 30% of the city’s transport-related carbon dioxide.
“And what’s terrible is that delivery vans in London were involved in 41% of fatal cyclist crashes and 19% of pedestrian deaths between 2018 and 2020” Rich said.
“We have to demonstrate that a logistics company can be green on top and black on the bottom line.”
In fostering Fin’s growth, the acquisition will primarily focus on Urb-it’s technology which has seen years’ worth of software development since Urb-it was founded in 2017.
“Urb-it has spent well over $15 million developing their technology which speeds up our mission to offer zero emission deliveries to all e-commerce companies,” Rich said.
Fin’s investment in the technology will enable it to utilise Urb-it’s integration with e-commerce giants including Zara, AliExpress, and Shein.
Rich said that the company will now be able to plug into these systems much quicker and manage their parcel deliveries while ramping up Fin’s volume.
“It’s also sustainable to use code already created rather than recreating from the bottom up and using more servers which use huge amounts of power.
“We will be adding tens of thousands of parcels per day into our network to become a major player in the logistics space.”
Fin has said that it will not be continuing Urb-it’s operations in France and Spain but will focus on cementing itself in London, before expanding to more UK cities, Europe and the US.
