How startup UniUni is beating Canada Post as it tries to become the country's newest unicorn
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Equipped with fleets of white delivery vans and a catalogue of distribution warehouses, last-mile delivery startup UniExpress Inc. — more commonly known as UniUni — in many ways resembles established rivals such as FedEx, United Parcel Service Inc. and Canada Post Corp.
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From its Richmond, B.C., headquarters located near the Vancouver International Airport, UniUni delivers everything from $5 dresses and bedazzled iPhone cases to bulk cleaning supplies and health supplements to shoppers across North America. It said it annually ships hundreds of millions of packages from e-commerce juggernauts such as Shein, Temu and Amazon.com Inc., in addition to smaller, independent retailers.
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Although the company looks like many other delivery services from the outside, it claims to have a secret sauce: a network of on-call drivers, tech-driven warehouses outfitted with sorting robots and a delivery platform that prizes algorithmic efficiency in an increasingly crowded delivery market that had 31,274 competitors in 2024, according to IBISWorld Inc. data.
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Investors have bought in, too. The company has raised US$202 million from international and Canadian investors in its six years of operation, including a $70-million round completed last week. It declined to share its current valuation.
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But UniUni's rise has been partly blemished by questions about its labour practices, including allegations of unpaid and late wages and reports that drivers were sleeping in warehouses, dozens to a room.
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That could be the only thing standing in the way of the company becoming Canada's next unicorn — a startup valued at $1 billion or more — an achievement that would make it a standout in the country's struggling scale-up scene.
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Hot streaks
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British Columbia-based entrepreneurs Peter Lu and Kevin Wang founded UniUni in 2019. The duo initially launched the app as a food delivery service, a space that was rapidly growing as platforms such as DoorDash and Uber Eats jostled for market dominance.
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