Previously, Singapore based food delivery startup, Grain, stated initiation of expanding to its neighbor countries. But it might be difficult for Grain as Malaysia has already had similar service that is even bigger than Grain. Now available in Malaysia and Thailand, dahmakan is expanding even further.
Recently it received a $5 million funding from its Series A funding round. The company had raised in total $10 million after its founding in 2015. China’s UpHonest Capital, Silicon Valley’s Partech Partners, Atami Capital and US seed accelerator Y-Combinator participated on the funding.
What makes dahmakan different from others
Similar to Grain, dahmakan offers an end-to-end or full-stack food delivery services. It’s unlike GrabFood, GoFood or FoodPanda that offers delivery to already existed restaurants or vendors.
The Malaysian startup had a stack of professional chefs in their kitchen. The chefs develop recipes and cook them for the customers ordering via its website or app.
Setting itself apart from Grain, dahmakan is more into catering system where the delivery time is set at meal time. Customers can even specify the time they need to eat, and if the food is late, they get their money back.
Moreover, dahmakan do not charge any delivery fees to their customers. Yet, it is a profitable company. Jonathan Weins, one of its co-founder even stated that the company’s profit is rising up to 20% per month.
It was not an easy deal for the company. Starting with minimum technology, it faced difficulties in managing the delivery time. As the time goes by, AI helped the company in matching the time and updating orders for customers. It also cut off some delivery costs and time.
AI technology also helped in finding customers pattern of preferences. Because Malaysia is a country with various palates as the people are mainly Malay, Chinese and India.
Amongst many startups from Southeast Asia, dahmakan is one of the few that made it to Silicon Valley Y-Combinator in 2017. And after acquiring Polpa in Bangkok, Thailand, it plans on expand further.
Firstly, by adding more services to Malaysian cities. Then it also plans on taking over the business in its neighboring countries such as Indonesia and Singapore.
