Chronology of the eFishery Collapse
Based on this epic article.
CEO Explains How He Faked Results in $300 Million Meltdown
Agritech venture eFishery was one of Asia’s brightest startups with money from the likes of SoftBank and Temasek. Then it all came crashing down.
David Ramli
2012
- Gibran Huzaifah graduates from ITB and dreams of being “Raja Lele” with 1,000 ponds.
- He starts building fish-feeding technology to solve feeding inefficiencies.
2013
- Gibran begins pitching the idea of automated fish feeders at startup competitions.
- A key pitch video from October 2013 shows him at a floating fish farm.
2015
- Dutch aquaculture fund Aqua-Spark joins a $750,000 seed round investment.
Late 2017
- eFishery faces serious cash problems: only $8,142 in the bank.
May 2018
- Aqua-Spark agrees to invest $1.5M in 3 tranches for Series A. The last $500K is conditional on attracting other investors.
Late 2018
- Gibran fabricates numbers in Excel to make eFishery look successful, triggering his first major deception.
- Investors are convinced and invest more capital — the beginning of dual accounting books.
2019
- Revenue reportedly jumps from $185K (2018) to $10M (2019) due to platform manipulation.
- eFishery becomes gross-profitable on paper.
- Expansion accelerates, attracting even more investor interest.
2020
- Series B raises $20M, co-led by Northstar Group and Go-Ventures (now Argor Capital).
- Global ESG investment trends make eFishery attractive to socially-conscious funds.
- Real financial performance diverges further from internal reality.
2021
- Gibran pitches SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son and receives a term sheet valuing eFishery at $200M.
- Competing offers from Sequoia (Peak XV) and Temasek push valuation over $300M.
- Eventually, $90M is raised at a $410M valuation from major funds.
- Actual financials: revenue ~40% lower than reported; pre-tax loss instead of profit.
- Gibran remains conflicted but does not stop accepting new funds.
Early 2022
- A staff member proposes a shell company network and transaction padding scheme.
- eFishery expands the manipulation to include over 5,000 fake accounts across subsidiaries.
- Default rates in lending platform rise; real cash increasingly used to fuel fake growth.
2023
- Series D raises $200M at $1.4B valuation led by Abu Dhabi’s 42XFund.
- eFishery expands to India and reports rapid profitability.
- Internal concerns rise; supply chain and market players begin to question inflated claims.
Late November 2024
- Whistleblower complaint is sent to a board member highlighting major discrepancies.
Dec 6, 2024
- Gibran is confronted by the board regarding internal inconsistencies and whistleblower evidence.
Dec 9, 2024
- Gibran confesses to eFishery's leadership team during a meeting.
Dec 11, 2024
- Gibran comes clean in a Zoom call with early investor Amy Novogratz (Aqua-Spark).
Dec 13, 2024
- Gibran is suspended by the board. Interim CEO and CFO are appointed. His access is revoked.
Early 2025
- FTI Consulting is hired to manage the company and assess viability.
- Machines are scrapped for ~$6 apiece.
- 42XFund’s $100M may only return $8.3M.
- Most employees laid off; operations ceased.
📌 Summary and Lessons
- The fraud began with desperation, when Gibran, facing cash depletion in 2018, altered financials to save the company.
- Over time, this evolved into systemic manipulation involving fake shell companies, duplicate books, padded revenue, and fictitious user data.
- Top-tier investors, including SoftBank, Temasek, Peak XV, and 42XFund, were lured in by the appearance of exponential growth and impact.
- Gibran justified his actions using utilitarian logic, often referring to the trolley problem: sacrificing truth for perceived greater good.
- However, his impact narrative masked fundamental unsustainability—loan defaults were high, real margin was extremely thin, and tech adoption was far lower than reported.
- Due diligence failures and investor FOMO played critical roles in enabling the deception.
- In the end, over $300 million was lost, and thousands of farmers like Suganda were left with broken machines and shrinking incomes.
- Gibran didn’t flee or visibly enrich himself but now lives a modest life and claims the money went into operations and growth, not personal gain.
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