Dah Makan hoping venture capitalists delive

Seeking to upgrade technology and improve the user experience, Malaysian food-delivery startup Dah Makan is working on a larger funding round with global venture-capital firms.

Dah Makan raised $320,000 from two angel investors in a seed round more than a year ago and has since grown to cover about 80 per cent of the Klang Valley region and has also crossed its 100,000th delivery.

“We are now finalising a larger round with several global VCs with extensive experience in eCommerce and consumer brands,” says founder/CEO Jonathan Weins. “It’s very important to have the right investors on board as they can have significant influence on the future of a company.”

He says an announcement on the funding may come in a few months, but meanwhile the company is investing into its team and technology. It released a new version of its apps last months and implemented a new backend system to manage the delivery fleet.

Before Dah Makan, which is Malay for “Have you eaten?”, Weins had helped launch Foodpanda in Hong Kong.

For Dah Makan, he and his co-founders did most everything from sourcing and cooking to delivering with the goal of understanding the customer experience as well as the business model.

From less than half a dozen orders a day, a few months later the rate was 100 orders a day. Since then, the group has had to move kitchens three times to expand capacity and has grown its team with culinary and tech talent.