International Paper leads Relay's $36M frontline intelligence round

International Paper is putting capital behind a vendor it already uses on the factory floor. The packaging giant led a significantly oversubscribed $36M financing for Relay, the Raleigh-based frontline operations technology company, announced September 30, 2026. Relay did not disclose a formal round label or valuation, which makes the lead investor more informative: International Paper is moving from customer evidence to capital commitment.

Relay builds a familiar push-to-talk experience around connected hardware, cloud communications, real-time translation, location awareness, safety alerts, automated workflows, and integrations. The company's argument is that enterprise software has digitized plenty of management work while leaving frontline context trapped in speech. Its Dynata survey of 500 U.S. manufacturing professionals found that 57% said their most important operational communication happens aloud and in person, while only 17% said almost everything workers notice and flag reaches a system, log, or formal report. Seventy-nine percent said communication breakdowns cause delays, rework, or missed handoffs at least a few times each month.

New investors include clients of Cerity Partners, Harmonic Growth Partners, and Thayer Investment Partners. G2 Venture Partners, which led Relay's 2024 Series B, and Wind River Ventures also increased their investments. Relay says the round brings its total capital raised above $90M.

The money will expand Relay's software and AI platform, including an insights and agentic layer that will let teams query shift data and act on it. The plan also covers worker-safety capabilities, integrations with enterprise systems, next-generation frontline hardware, expansion across industrial and hospitality markets, and hiring in product and go-to-market roles. Axios Raleigh reports that Relay has about 300 employees and expects to add roughly 100 people over the next year.

Keith Townsend, Group Vice President for Packaging Solutions North America at International Paper, said in the funding release that Relay had delivered dependable communication in loud industrial environments and helped improve shift transitions, operating processes, safety responses, maintenance alerts, and connections into operational systems.

The customer-led structure matters because International Paper brings requirements, deployment friction, procurement knowledge, integration needs, and operational consequences into the capital relationship. Thayer brings hospitality relationships, while Harmonic specializes in expansion-stage companies and Cerity's venture practice works with corporate investment programs. Returning investors G2 and Wind River are backing another phase after Relay's $13M Series A in 2023 and $35M Series B in 2024.