Dispatch Network | ₹5 Cr (Pre-Seed)

Pune-based Dispatch Network has raised ₹5 Cr (Rs 5 crore) in a Pre-seed round led by Antler India, with angel investors joining. The company runs an AI-driven last-mile delivery network and says it is trying to raise rider earnings by cutting the kilometres riders spend without an order.

The round

Dispatch announced the Rs 5 crore round on 2 November 2026. Antler India led; angels Krishi Fagwani (founder of Thrive), Yashin Mahadevia and Parth Modwadhia also participated. The company says this is its first public funding announcement. It plans to expand the team working on its proprietary Large Logistics Spatio-Temporal Model (LLSTM), built for intracity logistics, and to scale operations to 50,000 orders a day across five cities. It also plans to enter Mumbai in November 2026. No valuation has been reported. Different data providers convert the amount to different dollar figures, roughly $0.2 million to $0.5 million, so this article uses the rupee amount only.

What Dispatch Network does

Dispatch was started by Rajit Arya, who is CEO, and Navneeth Kannan, who leads product and AI. Reports differ on the founding year, so it is not stated here. The company operates through Artem Network Private Limited, according to Indian Retailer.

Its software manages orders across several delivery platforms and decides which order a rider takes next and where to wait for the following one. The company says riders can cover up to 50% of their distance without an order. It serves food delivery and quick-commerce platforms including Zomato, Swiggy, Zepto, Instamart and BigBasket, plus restaurants and stores through direct APIs and ONDC.

Traction figures below come from the company and have not been independently verified:

• Over 1 lakh deliveries since launching in Pune in June 2026.
• Monthly orders rose from 3,014 in June to 55,000 in October.
• Empty kilometres cut by nearly two-thirds.
• Riders earn about 55% more than the industry average, with 80% better retention.

You can follow the company's coverage under Dispatch Network funding news and other Pune startups.

The investors

Antler India led the round. The angel investors named in the round were not described further in the reports reviewed, beyond Fagwani's role as founder of Thrive.

Why it matters

Delivery platforms compete for the same pool of riders, and riders spend a large share of their day travelling without an order. Dispatch argues that sequencing orders across platforms can raise earnings and retention more than higher incentives from any single platform. That is the company's thesis; its results so far cover one city and about five months of operations, so the Mumbai launch will be a first test of whether the model holds up elsewhere. More deals in the segment are collected under Commerce funding news.