Heaptalk, Jakarta — eFishery’s Co-Founder and former CEO, Gibran Huzaifah, has admitted to manipulating the company’s financial data during his leadership. In a public statement and follow-up interview, he claimed that the actions were taken not for personal enrichment but as a measure to sustain this aquatech startup amid increasing pressure to demonstrate growth.
“What I did was wrong, but it was never about stealing money. It was to keep the company alive. This was not a matter of corruption. It was about survival,” He said, as cited in Katadata.
The situation unraveled following an internal audit that revealed multiple instances of data tampering, which discovered four metrics of manipulation. The issue includes inflating eFishery’s Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR), exaggerating the number of active fish farmers, overstating Gross Merchandise Value (GMV), and misrepresenting feed distribution volumes. These discrepancies raised red flags during due diligence checks initiated before a planned strategic partnership.
The earliest signs of financial manipulation reportedly began in late 2022 when eFishery struggled to meet investors’ aggressive growth expectations amid tightening global funding conditions. Gibran modified internal dashboards and presentations to reflect more substantial revenue and user retention metrics. Initially framed as temporary internal “optimizations,” these adjustments eventually found their way into external reports used during funding pitches and partnership negotiations.
The manipulated data reportedly surfaced in mid-2024 when internal and external stakeholders began questioning inconsistencies in eFishery’s reported growth. The pressure to show investor traction—particularly as the company prepared for another funding round—was a key factor behind Gibran’s decision to alter key performance numbers.
Established in 2013, eFishery achieved unicorn status after securing a US$200 million Series D funding round in 2023. Several strategic investors, including Northstar, Wavemaker Partners, Temasek Holdings, Argor Capital, SoftBank, and HSBC Indonesia, also previously inject fresh capital into the startup. In May 2024, eFishery received a USD 30 million green and social loan from HSBC Indonesia.
