Food delivery is one of the hottest sectors right now for both VCs and startups, and rightly so.
Currently, online food orders only represent 15 percent of a massive US$70 billion market, and consumers are quickly moving online to do everything, which includes ordering food.
It might be interesting for our readers to get to know which food delivery startups that are doing extremely well since their establishments in respective countries in Southeast Asia, to date.
Herewith, meet the top food delivery startups in each nation of the region:
SINGAPORE’S GRAIN
Grain competes in Singapore’s crowded online food delivery market with companies like Foodpanda, Deliveroo, and UberEats – all of them international players with significant brand capital.
Grain is different in its full-stack approach: rather than partnering with restaurants that make the food, it prepares its own dishes.
In 2016, Grain redesigned its logo and wiped any references to “healthy” food from the website. Now the visitor is greeted with a tagline that reads, “Food that delights,” which is a major part of the food delivery startup’s new branding.
Grain keeps its menu deliberately narrow with four different meals available each day on a selection that rotates weekly. Meals are priced between SG$9.95 and SG$12.95 (approximately US$6.90 to US$9) with a varying delivery fee. Customers in the busiest areas don’t pay anything for delivery and have no minimum spend, but those in quieter zones are charged and must hit a minimum spend.
It was reported, it has landed funding to build out its “full-stack” approach to food deliveries in the Southeast Asian city-state. According to TechCrunch, the total amount raised is SG$2.45 million, or US$1.7 million.
INDONESIA’S GO-FOOD
Go-Jek’s food delivery business, Go-Food which the company says has succeeded in converting customers. Go-Food claims to be the second busiest on-demand food delivery service (in terms of the number of transactions) in the world outside of China.
The business is emerging as a new pillar for the country's most valuable startup, as its core motorcycle taxi service faces intense competition from foreign rivals Uber and Singapore-based Grab. Since its start in April 2015, Go-Food has quickly taken over as the market leader, expanding into second-tier cities and partnering with popular chains.
Go-Jek’s CMO Piotr Jakubowski’s threw in an interesting claim: He said the company’s food delivery arm was recording a higher number of daily transactions than all food startups in India combined. “This has been confirmed,” Jakubowski stated.
CAMBODIA’S DOOR-2-DOOR
Pocket Guide (Cambodia) first published Phnom Penh DOOR-2-DOOR in printed form in April 2007 making us the longest running food delivery guide in the capital. The first issue included menus from fifteen restaurants in Phnom Penh that could deliver food to people around the city.
D2D Cambodia has established itself since 2007, and people might recognise their trademark monkey from the green or purple booklets scattered around the city. Their website acts as a page portal for restaurant listings with a simple structures.
The highlighted information on D2D’s website is the restaurants’ address and contact numbers, effectively doubling their platform to be the Yellow Pages of eateries. They are constantly adding new outlets to the collection.
MALAYSIA’S DAHMAKAN
DahMakan, which means “Have you eaten yet?” in Malay language controls their entire value chain, starting from creating their own fresh meals in-house which are then ordered through their online website or app and finally delivered to customers.
According to TechCrunch, Hong Kong-born, Australia and the UK educated Jessica founded DahMakan in Malaysia just over one year ago in 2014.
With her previous experience leading Foodpanda’s marketing in Hong Kong, a strong consulting background and a love for healthy meals, Jessica heeded the call of the generational shift and changing food preferences in Kuala Lumpur and set out to create a new food delivery service for the health conscious.
Together with her two co-founders, Jonathan Weins and Christian Edelmann, the trio funded DahMakan out of their own pockets along with two angel investors, who chipped in US$320,000.
VIETNAM’S VIETNAMMM.COM
Vietnammm.com is Vietnam’s largest online food ordering website and subsidiary of Takeaway.com Asia. It was established in 2011 and is the market leader in Vietnam.
Vietnammm.com was the first company to enter the online delivery space in Vietnam. In 2013 Vietnammm.com partnered with Takeaway.com to strengthen and grow the business of online ordering in Vietnam.
Vietnammm.com, announced on December 8, 2015, that it has successfully acquired the Vietnamese business of foodpanda. This deal ensures continuity to foodpanda’s customers and listed restaurants.
Foodpanda, originally launched under the brand HungryPanda.vn, has been operating in the Vietnamese market since 2012, offering online food delivery and takeaway from over 1,000 restaurants.
Following the acquisition of parts of the business, customers of foodpanda.vn will now be forwarded to Vietnammm.com and have a choice of the combined restaurant partner base of foodpanda and Vietnammm.com.
MYANMAR’S FOOD2U
Food2U, a Yangon-based food delivery service, has received six-digit seed capital from individual investors to aid its expansion plans.
The financing will help the company further upgrade its delivery platform, mainly to forge exclusive partnerships with more restaurants and for its planned expansion. With a focus on local consumers, the startup, founded in early 2015, has enrolled about 120 restaurants from Yangon.
BANGKOK’S INDIEDISH
Source: Inside Retail Thailand
Founded by two ex-Amazon employees, IndieDish not only delivers healthy food at a relatively cheap price of THB 89 per meal on average, it also makes the delivery process efficient in traffic-congested Bangkok.
IndieDish optimises its logistics algorithm by using a pre-order system. Based on the pre-orders it receives, which can be made a week in advance, IndieDish will work out the most efficient route for its delivery drivers. Up to May 2017, IndieDish has delivered over 18,000 meals so far. It doesn’t offer on-demand/same day delivery services but it is working on providing this service in the future.
PHILIPPINES’ INSTABURP
Instaburp is a food delivery service operating in the heart of Central Luzon.
Instaburp is solving 2 problems at the same time; aside from connecting casual food-trippers and serious food aficionados with their favorite and the newest food establishments, the company is helping small to medium food businesses to have an online presence and reach a new market. Instaburp works with restaurants with existing delivery service and also those without.
Even though Metro Manila has all the perks of holistic online food delivery platforms like Foodpanda and MetroPlate, Instaburp caters specifically to fast-growing localities and food hub near Metro Manila like Pampanga, Olongapo City, Subic, Batangas, Cavite other fast-growing cities.
BRUNEI'S PANDAFOOD
Online food delivery service FoodPanda has begun accepting orders from customers in Brunei since 2014.
The company on July 9, 2014, announced it has expanded its service to the sultanate and has partnered with 20 restaurants, including KFC, Burger King, Kenny Rogers Roaster, Fish & Co, PappaRich and Swensens.
The service takes food delivery orders from customers via its website foodpanda.com.bn, hotline and mobile application. It also offers takeaway and pre-order options.
Source : Various sources including DealStreetAsia.com and TechCrunch
