Relay, a Raleigh, North Carolina-based provider of software and connected hardware for frontline operations, has raised $36 million in new funding led by International Paper. New investors included clients of Cerity Partners, Harmonic Growth Partners and Thayer Investment Partners, while existing investors G2 Venture Partners and Wind River Ventures increased their investments. The financing brings Relay’s total capital raised to more than $90 million.
Founded in 2015, Relay is led by co-founder and CEO Chris Chuang. The company develops a platform for frontline and physical operations that combines cloud communications, AI, real-time translation, location awareness and automated workflows with purpose-built push-to-talk hardware. Its technology is used across sectors including manufacturing, hospitality and healthcare.
Relay said the new capital will support further development of its software and AI platform, including an insights and agentic layer designed to allow teams to query shift data and act on it. The company also plans to invest in worker safety capabilities, integrations with enterprise systems, next-generation frontline hardware, expansion across industrial and hospitality markets, and hiring across product and go-to-market functions.
Relay says its platform is deployed across nearly 10,000 sites and processes more than one billion data points each week. The company also said it serves hundreds of thousands of frontline workers and is used by nearly 10% of Fortune 500 companies.
The latest financing follows Relay’s $35 million Series B in June 2024, led by G2 Venture Partners with participation from existing investors including Wind River Ventures and Sovereign’s Capital. Relay had previously raised a $13 million Series A in 2023.
