Berlin-headquartered Delivery Hero now offers online food ordering in China, after reportedly acquiring restaurant delivery site Aimifan.com.
The opening of Delivery Hero’s Shanghai office comes a few months after opening its new office in South Korea and launching similar venture YoGiYo into that market. Delivery Hero, which reported 84 per cent growth in Q1 2012, is now active in 12 countries.
“Our management team has a lot of experience in expanding businesses into China and Asia. It’s a difficult market, but if you get it right, the potential is enormous”, Delivery Hero head of special projects Markus Fuhrmann said in a release on Friday.
“The expansion into China is a natural step and part of our ambition to build the global category leader in online food ordering“, Delivery Hero co-CEO Niklas Oestberg said.
New Delivery Hero China head Lucas Englehardt revealed in a recent interview that the expansion into Shanghai is due to the acquisition of Aimifan.com, which Englehardt founded. Englehardt said that Shanghai is the only city in China where Delivery Hero is active for now but that other cities are expected to follow.
Delivery Hero, founded as an international network by Oestberg and Fabian Siegel in 2010, is backed by investors including ru-Net, Tengelmann Ventures, Kite Ventures, Holtzbrinck Ventures, Point Nine Capital and Team Europe (also a shareholder in VentureVillage).
Team Europe’s fellow Berlin-based company builder Rocket Internet is also making a play for the online food delivery market in Asia – with FoodPanda active in Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam, India, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.
