AirAsia's Teleport gobbles up food delivery platform Delivereat for US$9.8m

Teleport, airasia digital’s logistics venture, is acquiring Malaysian online food delivery platform Delivereat for US$9.8 million. According to Teleport, the deal values it at US$300 million and welcomes prominent investors, including venture capital firm Gobi Partners onboard. As part of the acquisition, Delivereat’s founders Leong Shir Mein and Tan Suan Sear will be joining the management team at Teleport and airasia digital. Leveraging on AirAsia’s network, Teleport’s ambition is to deliver door-to-door in under 24 hours across Southeast Asia. Subject to final approvals, Teleport expects the transaction to close by Q3 2021.

Delivereat hails from Penang and was founded by a husband and wife team who are passionate about contributing to the local community by providing convenience to customers, job employment and increasing revenue streams to the local F&B operators. Meanwhile, Teleport was founded in 2018 and is present in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, India, Singapore and China. The acquisition comes months after airasia food expanded into Penang in May this year.

According to AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes said the acquisition supports its strategy to continue to serve the underserved and become the best value delivery company in ASEAN, on the ground and in the air. At the same time, it strengthens airasia digital’s plan to cover the end-to-end logistics chain, from first mile to last mile deliveries, providing a complete digital ecosystem.

"With Delivereat joining forces with Teleport, we will be able to drive further growth of fast and affordable delivery transportation options within our key markets as eCommerce continues to surge," he added.

Teleport's CEO Pete Chareonwongsak said the opportunity to grow its unique logistics ecosystem alongside Delivereat will help Teleport expand as quickly as possible, starting with all major cities in Malaysia, including Penang and Klang Valley and then beyond, across ASEAN. A+M has reached out to AirAsia for comment.

This marks one of its latest acquisitions this year, with the previous one being Gojek's Thailand operations. AirAsia Digital made a move on Gojek's business in Thailand last month to rev up the expansion of the airasia super app in ASEAN, while enabling Gojek to increase investments in Vietnam and Singapore. This is an all-share deal worth US$50 million in total. Gojek's investment is valued at US$40 million while GoPay's is at US$10 million. Moving forward, the airasia brand will be promoted aggressively in Thailand while the Gojek brand will no longer carry any prominence in the market.

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