Growing Appetites

Maxime Rosburger’s MealTemple is fighting to regain leadership in online food delivery in Cambodia.

- Danielle Keeton-Olsen

French entrepreneur Maxime Rosburger, 29, started his online food and groceries delivery service in Cambodia with his app MealTemple in 2013, and was the market leader until two new rivals recently put him in third place (by number of deliveries). Soon after MealTemple became profitable in 2015, Nham24 entered the market, luring customers with lower delivery fees and adding a wider array of restaurants. Last year a third competitor, E-Gets, became the market leader by tapping into Cambodia’s large Chinese-speaking community.

MealTemple still makes a total of 10,000 deliveries a month, according to Rosburger. The service is available in Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and Sihanoukville. While he declines to reveal any financial figures, he says the company is already in the black. He also says he scored a six-figure investment late last year from an undisclosed investor to expand further in Cambodia, and enter Laos and potentially other markets.

Rosburger is countering the threat from his rivals. Last year, he added grocery delivery and ride-hailing to the company’s services in Cambodia. In February, MealTemple agreed to buy Vientiane’s existing meal delivery service, MyDelivery. la. “Vientiane is not crowded at all,” he says. “While it’s unclear whether the service in Vientiane will take off as quickly as in Phnom Penh, I think our value proposition will be the choice of products we offer. Clients will be able to shop in many different stores in one order.”