In a statement issued to the media today, WhyQ said the new investment, under its Series A2 funding round, was in addition to another RM11.8 million secured in 2021.

The extended round of funding was led by the Kairos FoodTech Fund of Kairos Capital Group that had previously invested in other startups such as Good Meat, Roslin Technologies and Mission Barns.

WhyQ said that with the additional funding, it planned to continue to expand its digitalisation platform to support the growth of small businesses in Malaysia and Singapore.

“WhyQ will focus on improving their existing products and developing new ones to help small businesses better compete in the digital economy,” it said.

The company, which started as a food delivery service in Singapore in 2017, now serves 20,000 merchants in Singapore and Malaysia, helping them with digital bookkeeping and microfinancing on its digital infrastructure for MSMEs.

Co-founder and CEO Varun Saraf said the company will be leveraging on its experience partnering operators of small-scale food and beverage outlets such as hawkers in Singapore to help small business owners in Malaysia to digitalise.

It offers two free products to its customers — the WhyQ EBiz, an e-business app and the WhyQ Kira Kira, a digital bookkeeping app.

The WhyQ EBiz enables MSMEs to create their own online storefronts, connect them with marketplaces such as Foodpanda, accept online payments and link them up with logistics services such as Lalamove, all of which is done in 60 seconds.

The WhyQ Kira Kira enables businesses to track their daily transactions, manage their accounts and apply for low-interest rate loans from partners such as funding societies, the company added in its press statement.