Fantuan, a Vancouver, Canada-based Asian food delivery company, has announced their acquisition of Chowbus’ delivery business line, solidifying their position in the industry.
“We are in a similar industry, but each has a particular demographic coverage,” says Yaofei Feng, co-founder of Fantuan. “Now we cover more in Canada and they are more in the middle and eastern sides of the United States. We wanted to get better penetration and acquire more customers so we sat down and had a conversation.”
In its early days, Chowbus, based in Chicago, started out as a delivery service in 2016, focused on helping mom-and-pop Asian restaurants expand their reach. Co-founders Suyu Zhang and Linxin Wen were able to grow the company to over 20 cities by 2020, raising $40 million in venture capital funding along the way.
However, in 2022, Chowbus made a pivot to providing restaurant management software and point-of-sale services, according to Fantuan co-founder Yaofei Feng. Within a year, the company had already accumulated over 1,000 restaurant customers.
Fantuan, on the other hand, was founded in 2014 by Randy Wu and now operates in over 60 cities across Canada, the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Along with restaurant delivery, the company also offers services for fresh grocery delivery and dine-in options. In December 2023, Fantuan secured $40 million in Series C capital.
The new partnership between Fantuan and Chowbus will leverage the strengths of each company in order to better support local Asian restaurants. This includes Fantuan’s speedy food delivery process and Chowbus’ restaurant management software.
“With the rapid growth of the restaurant SaaS business line, we want to focus and develop better products and services for merchants,” says Linxin Wen, founder and CEO of Chowbus. “We are confident that our partnership with Fantuan will provide improved and expanded services for merchants across food delivery, restaurant SaaS systems and beyond.”
As part of the acquisition, about 20 employees from Chowbus will join the Fantuan team. Furthermore, Fantuan will also manage Chowbus’ fleet of independently-contracted delivery drivers.
With this latest move, Fantuan aims to solidify its Asia-focused food delivery services throughout cities in the U.S. Currently, the company holds around 80% of the market share in Canada, but only 10% in the U.S. However, both Fantuan and Chowbus are determined to help restaurants increase their business and efficiency through the use of order automation and increased revenue.
The food delivery industry has been subject to numerous changes as of late. While JOKR continues to thrive, Getir has pulled out of certain markets over the summer. Uber recently announced that it would be shutting down Drizly, an alcohol e-commerce platform it acquired three years ago. Additionally, Jumia has discontinued its food delivery service due to intense competition, according to CEO Francis Dufay. In November, antitrust regulators in the European Union conducted raids on two online food delivery companies for suspected cartel activity. Meanwhile, Indian food delivery company Swiggy has been busy buying out other businesses.
