“The extra we scaled, the extra we burned”
It’s been a protracted highway for WhyQ.
In 2016, the corporate was constructed round a simple concept: make hawker meals extra accessible to busy workplace staff within the CBD. After years of pivots, a pandemic-era detour into residential deliveries, and the laborious classes that got here with it, the Singapore startup has appeared to have discovered a mannequin that works—B2B company eating.
And the numbers are beginning to present it.
WhyQ co-founders Varun Saraf and Rishabh Singhvi shared that the corporate hit baseline profitability in Singapore in Q2 2025 and has stayed there. They added that the enterprise has maintained an annualised income run charge of about S$5 million by means of Q1 2026.
For a corporation that was burning by means of money throughout its pandemic-era shopper supply part—dispatching particular person riders for meals price S$10 to S$15 with no economies of scale—that’s a significant turnaround.
“The extra we scaled, the extra we burned,” COO Singhvi stated in a earlier interview with Tech in Asia. The pivot to B2B, he shared, “solved our complete unit economics puzzle.”
Delivering over 2,500 company meals day by day
WhyQ now operates solely as a B2B platform. Gone is the sprawling shopper app that after partnered with over 2,200 hawker stalls throughout 35 hawker centres.
As an alternative is a leaner company eating operation: simply barely over one-fourth the variety of companions at 500 service provider companions, however with long-term contracts that give the enterprise predictable, recurring income.
The most important lesson [we] discovered was making an attempt to compete within the unstable shopper supply market, the place income merely lacks long-term predictability.
About 20% of orders nonetheless come from hawker companions, with the remaining 80% pushed by curated restaurant manufacturers. Meal costs vary from S$8 to S$25 per head.
The corporate has additionally moved away from the third-party gig logistics that precipitated so lots of its consumer-era complications. WhyQ now runs its personal devoted supply fleet, whose riders are skilled to conduct high quality checks on the kitchen and deal with meal setup immediately at consumer workplaces.
“HR doesn’t should carry a finger,” Saraf stated.
As we speak, WhyQ delivers greater than 2,500 meals day by day to company shoppers.
What makes it much more interesting to company shoppers is that WhyQ white-labels its ordering portals in order that they appear like the consumer’s personal inside platform. It additionally handles all the pieces from day by day lunches to pantry snacks, occasion catering, and reside meals stations.
The corporate claims 100% consumer retention amongst its company accounts.
Service provider companions are additionally benefiting from the predictability. Gyoza San’s founder Wilman Ng stated the company order program has persistently boosted their month-to-month income by 15 to twenty%. KinBaba Thai reported the same 15% income carry since becoming a member of WhyQ’s community.
WhyQ’s subsequent massive guess
Assuming the B2B basis holds, WhyQ’s subsequent transfer is WhyQ Intelligence, an AI-powered vitamin and wellness software presently in pilot, with a industrial launch focused for Q3 2026.
The concept is to let staff observe dietary macros, set dietary targets, and chat with an AI assistant for menu suggestions—all tied to their firm’s curated meal choices. For HR groups, it connects meal participation information with attendance developments and worker engagement metrics.
Saraf frames it as each a consumer retention play and a brand new information layer: understanding what staff really wish to eat, which retains menus contemporary and deepens WhyQ’s grip on the accounts it already has.
The corporate is focusing on a 70 to 80% engagement charge amongst staff at consumer firms within the software’s first yr.
Down the road, WhyQ Intelligence might doubtlessly be spun out as a standalone product offered to firms managing their very own meals applications. That’s an extended runway, however it alerts the founders are considering past logistics.
“We’ve got a protracted technique to go right here”
WhyQ is focusing on 50% year-on-year income progress, pushed largely by increasing inside present accounts. One enterprise consumer is reportedly including 120 day by day meals in Jun 2026 and one other 250 in Oct.
Past Singapore, the founders see Hong Kong and Sydney as their subsequent potential markets, pointing to comparable competitors for expertise and present enterprise clients with workplaces in each cities. Moderately than increasing speculatively, WhyQ says it is going to solely enter a brand new market after securing a worthwhile anchor contract.
It additionally plans to amass native service provider networks the place potential as an alternative of constructing operations from scratch.
That stated, abroad enlargement isn’t new territory for the startup.
WhyQ beforehand operated in Malaysia, the place it provided two free digital instruments: WhyQ EBiz, an app that helped retailers handle their companies on-line, and WhyQ Kira Kira, a digital bookkeeping app. The corporate has since exited the market.
We selected to exit that market as a result of we really feel we’re nonetheless simply scratching the floor of the Singapore market and have a protracted technique to go right here.
That chance stays important.
Over the following three to 5 years, the founders plan to deepen their attain into industrial and industrial meals deserts like Tuas and Jurong, areas the place staff have traditionally had restricted entry to high quality, handy meals choices.
Years of pivots, a pandemic, and painful classes have reshaped WhyQ right into a enterprise targeted much less on progress for progress’s sake and extra on sustainable economics.
Whether or not that method holds stays to be seen. However for now, the startup seems to have discovered one thing it spent practically a decade looking for: a enterprise mannequin that really works.
Learn different articles we’ve written on Singaporean companies right here.
Additionally Learn: This 52 Y/O kopi enterprise roasts 1,000kg of espresso each month & is profitable over youthful drinkers
Featured Picture Credit score: WhyQ
