It makes its money by charging restaurants commissions of 15 per cent to 30 per cent on customer orders, and charging customers delivery and service fees that are partly subsidised by restaurants’ commissions.
The Easi acquisition makes Australia HungryPanda’s largest global market.
Together the two businesses, which are both focused on Chinese and other Asian communities overseas, will have 3.5 million customers, 60,000 merchants and about 40,000 drivers.
HungryPanda chief financial officer Frank McGlade said the companies had been talking on and off about a deal for several years, before considering a move seriously in early 2021.
Further expansion plans
“There are not that many companies focusing on the overseas Asian community in the food delivery space. We all know each other, from the executive levels to the guys on the street talking to restaurant merchants in and out,” Mr McGlade said.
He said catering to the overseas Chinese communities required differentiation in food offering, app design and Mandarin-literate drivers.
Post merger, the two companies want to expand further in the United States and Canada.
HungryPanda also plans to push ahead with an instant-grocery delivery business for Asian food items called Panda Fresh, and a Groupon-style lifestyle vouchers business, building on the current food delivery business.
For PandaFresh, it has already set up two grocery warehouses in Sydney and Melbourne and plans to add further locations next year.
“It’s unlike partnering on the food-delivery side of the business, where we’re working with merchants or restaurants who are cooking the food for us. This is actually all being done in-house,” Mr McGlade said.
He said the warehouses would be a capital expenditure, but the company had data on its customers’ preferences to better target the spending.
HungryPanda is owned by founder and chief executive Kelu Liu, and has attracted venture capital investment from firms such as Felix Capital, Piton Capital and Burda Principal Investment.
The Easi acquisition was funded via a recent $US130 million ($181 million) raising. HungryPanda is keeping the rest for future acquisitions, to fund capex for groceries and lifestyle businesses, and for technological development of its app.
