The Last Mile Lens featuring Jax Zheng, Director of Strategic Partnerships at UniUni

Conversations with the leaders transforming e-commerce, logistics, and the supply chain.

With its acquisition of the Toronto-based Shippie in March 2025, UniUni expanded its service offerings into same-day deliveries and doubled down on its tech-powered logistics model. But this wasn’t simply a strategic move. It was a merger of two shared visions for the future of the last-mile — one that’s fast, flexible, and relentlessly innovative. 

We caught up with Jax Zheng, former CEO of Shippie and now UniUni’s Director of Strategic Partnerships, to see just how this now-merged vision is manifesting itself. In this conversation, we dive into partnerships and service expansions, enhanced customer experiences and the startup award win that has the team buzzing about UniUni’s road ahead. 

Jax, let’s kick off the conversation with what this expanded network means for UniUni’s brand partners and customers. Are you delivering more reliability, visibility, and quality?

Jax: Yes, we’re delivering all three across service lines for all sized businesses. 

First, the Shippie acquisition allowed UniUni to introduce a new product line of same-day service. It’s a must-have standard now thanks to the normalization of quick-ship options. 

Second, UniUni gained Shippie’s deep knowledge of the North American small and medium-sized business (SMB) market. We worked with domestic SMB clients throughout our lifespan, and understood their pain points, the particular type of service they valued, and what processes worked best for their business. We’ve now integrated much of Shippie’s platform directly into UniUni’s systems. The core logic is the same, which means existing Shippie clients won’t see any disruption. They get the same service, but are now part of the larger UniUni network.

We’re also shifting the mindset at UniUni from chasing scale to delivering value. Volume still matters, but by focusing on providing exceptional service to targeted segments we can build stronger margins and a value proposition that really sets us apart. 

We want to stay on this for a minute. Tell us more about what gives UniUni an edge over legacy logistics providers now that you’ve combined forces. 

Jax: We’re not just a last-mile carrier. UniUni is a last-mile partner that can tailor our solutions to fit a brand’s needs no matter their size — be they a small, medium or even global scale brand. 

This ability all comes down to our flexibility and adaptability. Legacy providers typically have their foundations set, making it hard for them to pivot and respond to changing conditions like new tariffs or sudden market slowdowns and upticks. UniUni is structured to be agile. We can quickly scale our drivers up or down and adjust warehouse capacity to evolve our business model to fit the current market and needs of brand partners. Operational flexibility is engrained in all we do, allowing us to weather the unforeseen and respond faster than other providers.

Back when it was still operating as a stand-alone brand, Shippie earned a Hacker Noon award for its cutting-edge approach to regional delivery — Congrats! What did this mean for your team, and how is this spirit of innovation showing up at UniUni today?

Jax: We were really proud of this award simply because it’s community-driven. The votes came directly from the Toronto community, from the people who had been watching our growth for a year or more. Being named a runner-up among all of Toronto’s startups was a major win for us. 

You see, we didn’t raise a lot of money. We basically bootstrapped everything we built. We really saw this as a sign the community believed in what we were doing. We weren’t just working with big brands, we were working with all types and sizes of businesses to ensure that everyone had access to a delivery if they needed it. We’ve carried this same mentality into UniUni. 

UniUni is known for having strong last-mile capabilities. Now, we’re focused on making our delivery services accessible to everyone, whether they’re a major brand or someone shipping products out of their home. We’re democratizing the last mile. 

You head up strategic partnerships at UniUni. Can you tell us why it’s so important to have strong partners and how they’re shaping the future of last-mile logistics?

Jax: Partnerships will play a huge role in last-mile’s future, especially for us here at UniUni. 

Here, we think about our partnerships in two ways — external and internal. In the external sphere we’re focused on building strong, transparent relationships with our brand partners, service providers, and vendors. This means establishing clear lines of communication, ensuring everyone knows who to talk to, how to escalate needs, and is aligned on our shared goals.

Internally, it’s all about ensuring the right teams are looped in and have the visibility and resources they need to move quickly. Say we’re working with a new platform. We need to know which internal stakeholders should be involved and how we can coordinate cross-functionally. Speed and agility matter here, and this alignment helps everyone on our team stay responsive. 

I’m focused on laying the foundations for partnerships that will drive UniUni’s growth, because we simply can’t build everything in-house. Whether it’s a tech, marketing, or operational support partnership, the right partners are helping UniUni scale and launch products quicker while increasing our market credibility. In the long-term, strong partnerships build investor confidence. So, working with recognized names, like Dell for hardware or Mercedes for fleet, solidifies that UniUni is here to stay and building products and service lines that will last. 

Can you tell us what makes UniUni a good partner? 

Jax: I believe it all comes down to our customization and flexibility. UniUni has the scale, resources, and capabilities of a big company, but still operates with the agility of a startup. It’s a rare combination that gives us an edge. And us being a good partner is about building on this. 

We have the ability to tap into our resources to build new solutions quickly. We can pivot on a dime when the market shifts, a product needs to be rolled out, a competitor offers something new, or a partner’s needs change. For example, let’s say a small partner today might only be shipping 10 packages a day, but in six months after a viral campaign, they start shipping out 600. That is where our flexibility comes in. As their needs evolve, we can offer new solutions, maybe fulfillment, warehousing, or whatever it takes to meet them where they are.

And we want to be there at every stage of a partner’s growth, with services that scale with them.

What’s on the horizon at UniUni that you’re especially excited about?

Jax: The most exciting thing for UniUni right now is the SMB product we’re launching later this summer. It’s already in beta in Toronto and will be available to more of our brand partners soon. It’s the first major product on the UniUni platform that’s accessible to everyone.

What’s exciting is how easy it is to use. It doesn’t require a complex API connection. It’s basically one-click integration. That means anyone who needs to send a parcel can access the service right away. This will open the floodgates for our brand partners of all sizes. 

I’m excited to bring UniUni’s capabilities to a much broader segment of the market. This will position UniUni as a true national carrier with all the services of a traditional provider, but with far more flexibility and customization. 

Stay tuned for more conversations with the leaders shaping the future e-commerce, technology, logistics, and supply chain. As always, reach out to learn more about our last-mile delivery offerings to hello@uniuni.com.