Dispatch Network, a last-mile delivery company, has raised ₹5 crore in a pre-seed funding round led by Antler India. Angel investors Krishi Fagwani, founder of Thrive, Yashin Mahadevia and Parth Modwadhia also participated in the round. This is the company’s first public funding announcement.
Dispatch is building an AI-based operating network designed to improve the productivity and earnings of delivery riders. Its system assigns orders across multiple platforms and determines where riders should position themselves for their next delivery. The company aims to reduce waiting time and empty trips, allowing riders to complete more deliveries during their working hours.
The company says delivery riders can spend up to 50% of their kilometres travelling without an order because demand varies across platforms and time periods. Dispatch seeks to address this problem by coordinating orders and rider movements rather than allowing each delivery operation to function independently.
Its technology is based on the Large Logistics Spatio-Temporal Model (LLSTM), a proprietary AI model developed for logistics and urban mobility. The system processes city-level activity and uses information from orders, rider movements and delivery outcomes to improve its decisions. Each delivery and the decisions associated with it provide additional data for the model.
Since launching in Pune in June 2026, Dispatch has completed more than 100,000 deliveries. Monthly volumes increased from 3,014 in June to 55,000 in October, with the company reporting that order volumes have been doubling each month. It currently handles around 3,500 deliveries a day.
According to the company, its system has reduced empty kilometres by two-thirds. Riders earn approximately 55% more per month than the industry average, while rider retention is 80% higher than the industry average. Dispatch serves major food delivery and quick-commerce platforms, including Zomato, Swiggy, Zepto, Instamart and BigBasket. It also works with hundreds of restaurants and stores through direct application programming interfaces and the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC).
Co-founder and CEO Rajit Arya said the company was focusing on ensuring that riders receive the right next order and spend less time waiting or travelling without deliveries. Co-founder Navneeth Kannan said the AI system was being developed to determine order allocation, rider assignment and positioning. Antler India Partner Nitin Sharma said the company had built its model around rider requirements and demonstrated the potential to scale its operations. Dispatch plans to use the funding to expand the AI team developing LLSTM. It is preparing to launch in Mumbai in November and has set a target of handling 50,000 orders a day across five cities.
Dispatch Network, operated by Artem Network Private Limited, is a last-mile delivery network using proprietary AI to improve rider productivity. Co-founder Rajit Arya has worked in electric mobility since 2009 and has spent five years working with delivery riders. Co-founder Navneeth Kannan has a decade of experience in product architecture and mobility systems. The company entered last-mile delivery in 2026 and began operations in Pune in June.
