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. It has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in an attempt to modernize the country’s fish industry, providing farmers with smart feeding devices as well as feed, and then buying their produce to sell into the broader market.
EFishery, one of Indonesia’s most prominent startups, may have inflated its revenue and profit over several years, according to an internal investigation triggered by a whistleblower’s claim about the company’s accounting.
A preliminary, ongoing probe into the agritech startup, backed by investors including SoftBank Group and Temasek Holdings, estimates that management inflated revenue by almost US$600 million ($811.93 million) in the nine months through September last year, according to a 52-page draft report circulated among investors and reviewed by Bloomberg News. That would mean more than 75% of the reported figures were fake, the report said.
