Foodfly

Foodfly, operating under its parent company Fly&Company Inc., was established in March 2011 as a first-generation premium food delivery platform in South Korea. The company was founded by Seojane Jae-wan, who had a background in managing a fusion Korean restaurant. Early in its journey, the venture secured angel investment from TicketMonster co-founder Seong-yoon Shin. To accelerate growth, the company brought on new leadership, appointing Eunseon Lim, formerly a strategy consultant at Deloitte, as CEO, and Hyekyung Ko, from Samsung Electronics' overseas sales division, as COO.

The business carved a niche in the competitive food delivery market by focusing on providing delivery services for high-quality local restaurants and franchises that traditionally did not offer their own delivery. This model targeted a specific segment of the market, estimated at 40 trillion won, comprised of establishments lacking delivery infrastructure. Foodfly's value proposition was twofold: it offered restaurants a new revenue stream and provided consumers with a wider, more premium selection of food choices beyond typical fast food. The company operated an integrated system, combining an online and mobile ordering marketplace with its own offline fleet of delivery riders, ensuring an optimized and reliable delivery process from order to drop-off.

A significant milestone was the launch of 'Chefly' in July 2016, a premium service delivering meals created from special recipes in collaboration with chefs from renowned restaurants. This was later expanded with 'Chefly Cook', a Ready-To-Cook (RTC) product line of semi-prepared meal kits. By September 2017, Foodfly had partnered with 1,700 restaurants primarily in Seoul. This success and strategic market position led to its full acquisition by Delivery Hero, the global food delivery giant and operator of Yogiyo and Baedaltong in Korea, in September 2017. Following the acquisition, Foodfly's operations were progressively integrated, and the brand was eventually absorbed into Yogiyo Express in July 2020, ceasing to operate as a standalone service.

Keywords: Foodfly, Fly&Company, Eunseon Lim, Seojane Jae-wan, South Korean food delivery, restaurant delivery service, premium food delivery, Chefly, Chefly Cook, meal kits, Delivery Hero acquisition, Yogiyo, Baedaltong, Seoul food tech, online food ordering, delivery outsourcing, last-mile delivery, ghost kitchen precursor, RTC meals, gourmet food delivery, food delivery marketplace