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Photo credit: Delivereat.

Shanghai-based Gobi Partners has made a new investment in Malaysia – this time in Penang-based online food delivery service Delivereat.

The startup scored US$450,000 in pre-series A funding from the Gobi MAVCAP ASEAN SuperSeed Fund, Gobi’s collaboration with Malaysia Venture Capital Management Berhad.

Founded in November 2012, Delivereat offers a variety of cuisines from more than 200 restaurants in Penang, where it has become a household name. It currently services more than 40,000 customers a month.

With the funding, it plans to expand to other cities in Malaysia and increase its marketing efforts toward merchants to boost sales.

Not a new model

Delivereat faces still competition from other online food delivery providers like Foodpanda, which was recently sold to Delivery Hero. “This is not a new business model with some new age technology,” admits Victor Chua, Gobi’s vice president of investment in ASEAN.

However, he said their decision to invest was driven by the team’s ability to execute their plans. “We definitely like how the team is running the business and we believe that Delivereat will continue to innovate with the vision to be profitable.”

With Gobi’s significant exposure in food ecommerce, “there’s a lot of knowledge and operational insight sharing that can happen,” Victor tells Tech in Asia. He adds that Gobi will be a pillar of support for Delivereat’s expansion into new areas.

Gobi has over 170 portfolio companies across China and Southeast Asia. In Malaysia, it has invested in wholesale food and beverage marketplace Supplybunny, restaurant discovery and booking startup Offpeak, beauty advisory platform Favful, and cosmetics and skincare marketplace Hermo, among others.

The VC firm’s US$14.5 million SuperSeed Fund targets seed-stage companies in Southeast Asia.

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