This is an English adaptation of a FoodBud historical article originally published on October 21, 2022.
According to Xiaguangshe, which interviewed Deliverychinatown founder Tian Ye, Singapore’s 2022 surge in Chinese entrepreneurs, investors, business travelers, and new residents created a very specific operating gap: people arriving from China quickly needed two local services, food delivery and ride-hailing. Grab was the obvious mainstream answer, but Chinese diners still wanted familiar restaurant names, Chinese-language menus, and dishes that matched their tastes.
Deliverychinatown, also known as Chinatown Delivery, was built around that gap.
Deliverychinatown launched in July 2019 after Tian Ye, a National University of Singapore graduate, returned to Singapore following two to three years in China. He saw that Southeast Asia’s delivery market was less mature than China’s, especially for Chinese food. Many Chinese restaurants popular among local Chinese communities did not appear on mainstream apps, while phone orders often failed because the restaurants could not deliver long distances.
The platform’s competitive set included Grab, Singapore’s Star Food, HungryPanda, and Malaysia’s Easy, which HungryPanda acquired.
For new arrivals, the app’s appeal was breadth. It listed Sichuan and Hunan food, northeastern barbecue, maocai, hotpot skewers, and regional brands, alongside familiar names such as Haidilao, Yun Nans, Xiaolongkan, and Yang Guofu Malatang. It also carried local Chinese shops such as Kangji Tanghulu, Laniu Xiaoxianrou, and Wanli Tiaoyan.
Holiday demand was especially strong around Mid-Autumn Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, and Chinese New Year, when customers ordered large Chinese banquet-style meals from major Chinese restaurants in Singapore.
Tian described Deliverychinatown as a “sell water to gold miners” business: as Chinese entrepreneurs, investors, and travelers arrived in Singapore, the platform served their immediate lifestyle needs.
Average order values for Chinese-food delivery were high. Some high-net-worth customers placed orders worth several thousand yuan. During one Singapore National Day, Tian personally drove three Chinese-food orders to Marina Bay Sands. The combined food value of those orders exceeded RMB 5,000. One order shown in the article was worth US$329.30.
A key operating difference was distance. Tian said Grab generally handled delivery within 3 kilometers, and users outside that radius might not even see the restaurant they wanted. Deliverychinatown positioned itself around island-wide Chinese-food delivery, including trips of 20 to 30 kilometers. Extra delivery fees were shared by users and the platform.
For some Singapore customers, paying extra delivery fees could still compare favorably with taking a taxi across the island. Tian gave the example of a well-known Hunan restaurant whose potential customer base extended across Singapore. A taxi trip could cost more than S$20, roughly RMB 100, making delivery look practical.
Long-distance delivery also created service challenges. Rain and distance could push delivery times beyond 90 minutes. In the company’s early days, Tian said founders and staff would all go out as riders during bad weather or holiday peaks. During Chinese New Year, large orders of more than 10 dishes could slow restaurant production so much that he would wait at the restaurant and video-call customers to show kitchen progress.
By the time of the interview, Deliverychinatown had more than 400,000 users across Southeast Asia. More than two-thirds were in Singapore, mostly Chinese people who had moved there to start businesses or settle.
Tian said Singapore’s Chinese-restaurant market had changed sharply over the previous decade. When he studied there, there were far fewer Chinese restaurants. By 2022, Singapore had many larger and more authentic Chinese restaurants, while Chinese-influenced food outlets numbered in the thousands. In Kuala Lumpur, he said Chinese restaurants had also grown into the thousands.
Still, Southeast Asia was not a simple copy of China’s delivery market.
One difference was ordering behavior. Some local users ordered through web pages and expected email confirmations. New arrivals from China often found email notifications unfamiliar and would call the platform because they could not locate their orders.
Another difference was mixed ordering. Deliverychinatown allowed customers to order from multiple Chinatown restaurants in one delivery run, such as chive pockets from one shop, lamb soup from another, cold dishes from a third, and yogurt fruit from another. Tian said this surprised many new Chinese users, who were used to placing one order from one restaurant.
The app also reduced text and used larger food images because, in Tian’s view, Southeast Asian users were less inclined to read long descriptions.
One China-style tactic did transfer well: a “bargain down the delivery fee” feature similar to China’s viral social-commerce mechanics. Delivery fees in Singapore could exceed S$16, about RMB 80, especially at peak periods. Deliverychinatown let users share an order with friends to reduce delivery fees. The platform absorbed more delivery cost, but gained user referrals and organic growth.
Tian said customer acquisition was relatively smooth in Southeast Asia, while merchant-side cooperation was harder.
In China, many restaurants depend heavily on delivery traffic, especially new restaurants trying to open the market. In Southeast Asia, many Chinese restaurants already had their own diners and fan bases. Customers could call restaurants directly, avoiding platform commissions.
That shifted the company’s work from “educating the market” to “educating merchants.” Tian said service quality and cooperative relationships were critical to retaining restaurant trust.
To meet merchant needs, the company launched MEUU, a technology-service brand for restaurants’ independent sites. Tian described the combination of consumer discovery, delivery, and B2B restaurant technology as the company’s path under the idea of “Discover & deliver great food.”
The company’s other major bottleneck was rider supply in Singapore.
Tian said delivery pay in Singapore was not low, and riders who worked hard could earn more than RMB 10,000 per month. But many young people arriving in Singapore preferred office jobs in high-rise buildings. He also said some local Southeast Asian riders were less rigorous than Chinese delivery workers, including cases where a rider accepted an order, went to eat first, and only then completed the delivery.
Because rider resources were tight, Tian said the company did not dare push order volume much higher, even though he believed the business still had room to expand.
The company’s recruiting slogan at the time was “occupy the mountain and never worry about food and drink.”
Tian’s original idea was to build a technology platform that could make Deliverychinatown available wherever there was a Chinatown. Over time, the company narrowed its focus to Chinese-food delivery and overseas Chinese lifestyle services, while adding restaurant independent-site technology.
He saw Chinese signs, malatang, Hong Kong-style morning tea, beef-tripe hotpot, hot-and-sour noodles, liangpi, fried noodles, braised noodles, and noodle soups becoming more common across Southeast Asian cities. In his view, food was one of the fastest routes for cultural transmission.
He also said Singapore’s popularity was visible in Deliverychinatown’s growth data, and believed that Singapore’s momentum was already influencing Malaysia and Thailand. More Chinese restaurant brands entering Southeast Asia would, in his view, create opportunities in market research, investment attraction, and brand promotion.
Tian traced the emotional origin of the business to the summer of 2019, when he ate Beijing-style candied hawthorn near the equator and felt moved by the taste of home. Delivery was operationally demanding, he said, but the purpose was simple: wherever overseas Chinese communities went, they should be able to eat food from home.
Note: forward-looking market comments and expansion expectations are historical, based on the October 21, 2022 article.