Fraud-hit eFishery slashes over 1,000 jobs as company weighs liquidation
Only 10% of workforce said to remain; workers told to work from home, building ‘sterilisation process’ cited
Edmund Loh FC
INDONESIAN aquatech unicorn eFishery is ramping up plans to axe employees as it struggles to manage the fallout from its ongoing crisis.
“The layoffs are happening in multiple waves, with different last days for affected employees: Jan 31, Feb 13, and Feb 20,” said one employee, who requested anonymity. “So far, everything has been carried out according to regulations, both in terms of procedure and compensation.” The exact number of affected employees remains unclear, but another source familiar with the matter suggests that up to 90 per cent employees could be affected.
Those remaining will likely be staff in core business areas such as the fish and shrimp value chains, the source added. Bloomberg reported over 1,000 staff were axed as the company weighs potential liquidation.
Tech in Asia has reached out to eFishery and its union for comment.
Emails shared with Tech in Asia show that eFishery had instructed all employees to work from home yesterday (Feb 13), citing a “sterilisation process” at its office building.
The layoff process appears to be accelerating after FTI Consulting took over management of eFishery on Feb 4. At the time, eFishery stated it had to make several “difficult decisions” to align operational costs with the group’s “actual business scale.”
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A general meeting of shareholders is expected to be held soon to determine the future of the company, confirms one senior executive.
EFishery has been grappling with a deepening crisis. In December 2024, it launched an internal probe into allegations of financial fraud. Co-founders Gibran Huzaifah and Chrisna Aditya stepped down following the investigation, which was led by FTI Consulting.
The probe estimated that management inflated revenue by almost US$600 million in the nine months through September last year. That would mean more than 75 per cent of the reported figures were fake.
A draft audit of eFishery later uncovered more troubling details, including the company’s use of “external books” to present inflated financials to outside parties such as its board, shareholders, banks, and auditors. The report also identified several senior executives as “implicated employees” in the alleged fraud.
EFishery hit unicorn status in 2023 after attracting funding from top-tier investors likes Temasek Holdings, Northstar Group and SoftBank.
The high-profile startup is unravelling after a board investigation revealed it may have inflated its revenue and profit over several years. The company had raised hundreds of millions of dollars, and its demise would deal a blow to the local startup industry’s efforts to attract more global investors.
EFishery, which deploys feeders to fish and shrimp farmers in Indonesia, was a darling of the nation’s startup scene and scored a valuation of US$1.4 billion when G42, an AI firm controlled by United Arab Emirates royal Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, backed its latest funding round. TECH IN ASIA, BLOOMBERG
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