Relay has raised $36 million in new funding, bringing total capital raised to more than $90 million, as it expands its platform for frontline workers and physical operations. The oversubscribed round was led by International Paper, with additional new investment from clients of Cerity Partners, Harmonic Growth Partners and Thayer Investment Partners. Existing investors G2 Venture Partners and Wind River Ventures also increased their investments.
Relay combines cloud communications, AI, real-time translation, location awareness and automated workflows with purpose-built frontline hardware.
The new funding will accelerate its AI and software platform, agentic capabilities, worker safety tools, enterprise integrations and next-generation hardware, along with expansion in the industrial and hospitality sectors.
Relay serves hundreds of thousands of frontline workers and approximately 10% of the Fortune 500. The company reported 99% gross revenue retention and 130% net revenue retention among enterprise customers.
Its platform is deployed at nearly 10,000 sites and processes more than one billion data points each week.
KEY QUOTES:
“What makes this round special isn’t simply the capital being raised – it’s the alignment with leaders from the industries we serve on how Relay can help them digitally transform their physical operations. International Paper understands Relay not just from an investor standpoint, but from the perspective of a customer witnessing the transformational value Relay delivers across its highly demanding industrial environments. Similarly, Thayer brings perspective from multiple leading hotel brands that already run Relay across thousands of properties. It’s a powerful endorsement when customers aren’t just buying your system but are also betting on the company behind it.”
Chris Chuang, CEO and Co-Founder of Relay
“We run complex and demanding industrial operations, where strong communications isn’t a nice-to-have – it’s foundational. Relay has proven it can deliver clear, dependable communications in extremely loud and challenging industrial environments. Relay goes beyond communications to improve shift transitions, strengthen operating processes, accelerate responses to safety and maintenance alerts, and connect frontline insights into operational systems. We invested because we envision Relay as an important part of our modern industrial technology stack.”
Keith Townsend, Group Vice President, Packaging Solutions North America at International Paper
“Thayer has a unique vantage point on hospitality technology, as our investment partners represent many of the world’s leading hospitality companies. Relay is increasingly becoming a standard in hospitality, particularly in more complex and demanding luxury hotel, resort, and casino properties. With Relay’s AI-powered system, teams are safer, more connected, and ultimately more effective at delivering exceptional guest experiences.”
Chris Hemmeter, Managing Partner at Thayer
