Following the successful acquisition of the food delivery platform Delivereat for USD9.8 million in August 2021, AirAsia Group announced today that it has appointed Delivereat founder Tan Suan Sear as airasia Super App’s Group Head of airasia food. He will be in charge of driving growth for the Super App’s food delivery platform across Malaysia as well as its plan to expand across Asean in line with the Group’s accelerating digital journey.
The announcement was made during an official press conference held in Straits Quay, Penang, where Suan Sear, a local native Penangnite, and his wife, Leong Shir Mein (also appointed as Head of On-Demand for AirAsia’s delivery arm, Teleport) first founded Delivereat as a homegrown startup in 2012. Tony Fernandes, Chief Executive Officer of AirAsia Group and Lim Ben-Jie, Head of Delivery for airasia Super App attended the event to welcome the new appointees.
Tan Suan Sear, Group Head of airasia food said, “I am excited to join the airasia food and airasia Super App family, bringing my decade of on-ground experience in the food delivery space to the table. The journey of the airasia Super App’s delivery business has been an inspiring story since it was launched last year, and from one homegrown brand to another, I am confident that our team will be able to solidify airasia food’s position as the region’s most preferred food delivery platform in the near future.”
With just two riders and one restaurant under its name back in 2012, Suan Sear and Shir Mein turned Delivereat into a household name by delivering more than one million orders to date, and offering food and express delivery services on an on-demand basis from more than 4,000 merchants (consisting of restaurants, wet markets, pharmacies and groceries), carried out by its fleet of some 4,000 registered delivery partners. Delivereat covered Penang and the Klang Valley, and led the food-delivery space with the largest selection of hawkers in Penang with around 1,000 hawkers, and was the first to allow customers to combine multiple orders within the same delivery.
Tony Fernandes, Chief Executive Officer of AirAsia Group said, “We are truly excited to welcome Suan Sear and Shir Mein to the team, as they bring in a wealth of experience and their “never-say-die” culture to our ongoing strategy to continue our mission of serving the underserved and become the best value food delivery platform in Asean.
“Just as former Dacsee founder Lim Chiew Shan is now our CEO of airasia ride, this move highlights AirAsia Group’s commitment to acquire and cultivate local talents by bringing in seasoned Malaysian veterans in each industry. We believe this strengthens and propels the success of AirAsia Group’s digital arm, well documented in a Credit Suisse report recognising us as one of the three ASEAN Unicorns based in Malaysia.”
Lim Ben-Jie, Head of Delivery for airasia Super App said, “The AirAsia brand has always been an ASEAN brand, from the people we serve, to the people we nurture, and now to the champions we bring onboard to our journey. Together with Suan Sear’s expertise in the field, the new merchants joining in from Delivereat’s roster of F&B outlets, such as McDonald’s, Tealive and the fleet of riders joining our delivery team, we expect a stronger airasia food platform that will provide even better job opportunities for riders, better value and choice for our customers and most importantly, a better platform for our fellow merchants partners to be profitable and succeed in their digital transformation journey.”
