Lesson from eFishery’s fraud: A wake-up call for Indonesia’s startup ecosystem

IN LATE 2024, Indonesia’s pride in its first aquaculture unicorn turned to shock when it emerged that eFishery, once valued at US$1.4 billion, was embroiled in a massive fraud.

In April this year, co-founder and former chief executive officer Gibran Huzaifah admitted to systematically manipulating eFishery’s financial reports since 2018 to attract investors and “survive” a cash crunch. He told Bloomberg that the company had been keeping dual books: an accurate internal set and an inflated version for investors.

These falsified figures helped eFishery raise funds and avoid bankruptcy, boosting the startup to unicorn status with backing from global investors such as SoftBank, Temasek, Northstar and Sequoia Capital.