QuickBytes: Kludio’s plans to become a ‘digital food court’

QuickBytes is a Q&A series featuring Asian startups that showcases their innovations and the challenges they face. The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Kishwar Hashemee, CEO of Kludio / Photo credit: Kludio

Describe your company in one sentence

Kludio is a food delivery platform where the full-stack model takes control of the entire food delivery value chain through cloud kitchens, a consumer-facing mobile app, and logistics. Think of it as a digital food court where you can mix and match food brands so you can find delight in every bite.

What problem is your company trying to solve?

Restaurants are not designed for on-demand food delivery. With the middle-income segment burgeoning in Bangladesh, we’re creating a system to support these customers.

Who was your first hire and why?

Our head chef was our first hire because food is at the heart of everything we do.

What challenges are you facing and how are you overcoming them?

Challenges keep changing every quarter, every month – even every day. When we started, they revolved around brand creation and kitchen operations. Now, these are built-in capabilities of the team: Kludio can create cuisines and brands in weeks.

We recently launched our consumer-facing app to create a direct customer relationship, which has solved issues around market access and overdependence on aggregators.

Logistics used to be a challenge, but we have since built an elastic fleet that enables us to deliver hot and fresh food quickly.

Every challenge that we overcome becomes a capability, ultimately allowing the team to move toward our vision.

What do you have planned for the near/distant future?

The food delivery market in Bangladesh has exhibited a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 80% since 2016 – it’s on track to be a billion-dollar market by 2025.

In the mid-term, we’re focused on scaling what we’ve already built and proven. The model works and the market is large, so the focus is on opening new kitchens to unlock the pent-up demand in a city of 20 million people. Imagine 10 kitchens with 150 proprietary brands in each – that’s a total of 150 digital restaurants.

Our long-term vision is to digitize the value chain for SME restaurants by using what we’ve already built in terms of operational and supply chain technology.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Embrace the discomfort. Entrepreneurs frequently face uncomfortable decisions, but those are what help you build a meaningful company.

This content was produced by Tech in Asia Studios, which connects brands with Asia’s tech community. Learn more about partnering with Tech in Asia Studios.