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Facedrive Inc. (" Facedrive ") (TSXV: FD), a Canadian "people-and-planet first" tech ecosystem, is pleased to announce that its food delivery vertical Facedrive Foods is expanding into the ethnic foods segment while also implementing new health and safety upgrades in response to burgeoning customer demand. Facedrive Foods continues to experience substantial growth, with orders exceeding 3,700 meal deliveries per day. Restaurant partners are now nearing 4,000 with over 220,000 active users registered on a platform that is now operational in 19 cities across Canada including Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Kingston, London, Edmonton and Halifax, and with expansion plans to other cities in Canada and the USA anticipated soon.
Facedrive Foods has capitalized on the dramatic shift in commerce patterns and consumer behavior in the wake of the pandemic. As storefronts and restaurants have limited their offerings to take out or delivery service exclusively, volumes of orders made through online on-demand food delivery platforms have soared. At the same time, the ethnically diverse North American market continues to demonstrate strong demand for authentic national cuisines. The tandem of these two trends has played strongly into the Facedrive Foods' playbook and ambitious expansion plans. Facedrive Foods strategic expansion to ethnic foods segment is based on the popularity of ethnic cuisines and to increase customer access to authentic ethnic food, which is currently lacking in the market.
Furthermore, Facedrive Foods is introducing a number of health and safety upgrades aimed at enhancing user health, safety and confidence as the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic intensifies. One key safety precaution that has been rolled out throughout the Facedrive Foods platform is in-app temperature display. This function allows customers to see body temperature of the driver delivering their order and automatically disables drivers who exhibit above normal body temperatures. Another fundamental addition to the Facedrive Foods offering will be the integration of Facedrive's proprietary TraceSCAN product, a standalone contact-tracing wearable solution built on cutting-edge Bluetooth technology and enabling functionality such as contact-tracing and social distancing alerts. Facedrive Foods will be the first food delivery platform to implement contact-tracing technology as a part of its COVID-19 prevention protocol. By Q1 2021, Facedrive Foods expects integration with TraceSCAN to be completed and for all Facedrive Foods drivers to be donning TraceSCAN wearables.
"We are thrilled to be expanding into the ethnic market to better serve the growing needs of our customers," said Di Han, General Manager of Facedrive Foods. "We are also excited to implement in-app temperature readings as well as the TraceSCAN technology suite to ensure the safety of our drivers, customers, or restaurant workers. In this current situation, complying with stringent safety protocols is the only way to support restaurants and for our consumers to have peace of mind when using our delivery services. As such, health safety continues to be a critical element of our day-to-day operations and future outlook," added Han.
About Facedrive
Facedrive is a multi-faceted "people-and-planet first" tech ecosystem offering socially-responsible services to local communities with a strong commitment to doing business fairly, equitably and sustainably. As part of this commitment, Facedrive's vision is to fulfil its mandate through a number of verticals that either leverage existing technologies of the Company or project synergies with existing lines of business (the " Facedrive Verticals "). The Facedrive Verticals include its rideshare business (" Facedrive Rideshare "), sustainable e-commerce platform (" Facedrive Marketplace "), food-delivery service (" Facedrive Foods "), e-social platform (" Facedrive Social ") and its contact-tracing and sustainable health services business (" Facedrive Health ").
Facedrive Rideshare was among the first to offer a wide variety of environmentally and socially responsible solutions in the Transportation as a Service (TaaS) space, planting thousands of trees based on user consumption and offering choices between electric, hybrid and conventional vehicles (including, more recently, electric and hybrid vehicles on a subscription basis through Steer). Facedrive Marketplace offers curated merchandise created from sustainably sourced materials. Facedrive Foods offers contactless delivery of a wide variety of foods right to consumers' doorsteps, with a focus on doing so in a socially and environmentally-conscious manner. Facedrive Social strives to keep people connected in a physically-distanced world through its HiQ and other e-socialization platforms that invite users to interact based on common interests and by offering gamification and mutual community support features. Facedrive Health strives to develop and offer innovative technological solutions to the most acute health challenges including its proprietary TraceSCAN wearable technology for contact tracing. Facedrive envisions changing the ridesharing, food delivery, e-commerce, social and health tech narratives for the better, for everyone, and is currently operational in Canada and the United States.
For more about Facedrive, visit www.facedrive.com .
Facedrive Inc.
100 Consilium Pl, Unit 400, Scarborough, ON, Canada M1H 3E3
www.facedrive.com
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain information in this press release contains forward-looking information. This information is based on management's reasonable assumptions and beliefs in light of the information currently available to us and are made as of the date of this press release. Actual results and the timing of events, such as those pertaining to the platform-wide rollout of the new TraceSCAN technology, may differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking information as a result of various factors. Information regarding our expectations of future results, performance, achievements, prospects or opportunities or the markets in which we operate is forward-looking information. Statements containing forward-looking information are not facts but instead represent management's expectations, estimates and projections regarding future events or circumstances. Many factors could cause our actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements or future events or developments to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements.
See "Forward-Looking Information" and "Risk Factors" in the Corporation's Filing Statement dated August 28, 2019 for a discussion of the uncertainties, risks and assumptions associated with these statements. Readers are urged to consider the uncertainties, risks and assumptions carefully in evaluating the forward-looking information and are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such information. We have no intention and undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities law.
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Media: S ana Srithas | sana@facedrive.com
Sayan Navaratnam
Chief Executive Officer and Director
Tel: 1-888-300-2228
