Investigators hired by the board of eFishery Pte have determined the Indonesian unicorn is “in far worse shape” than they previously thought, and that investors are likely to get back less than 10 cents for every dollar they invested, according to documents seen by Bloomberg.

The company, which deploys feeders to fish and shrimp farmers in Indonesia, incurred several hundred million dollars in losses between 2018 and 2024 and misrepresented its financial figures for years, according to Bloomberg‘s report, quoting documents and a person familiar with the matter.

“eFishery is not commercially viable in its current form,” said a presentation prepared for the firm’s investors by FTI Consulting Singapore Pte, the adviser hired to review the business and take over management of the company, according to the report.

eFishery, whose financial backers include SoftBank Group Corp, Singapore’s Temasek Holdings Pte and Malaysia’s pension fund The Retirement Fund Inc (KWAP), had been a star of Indonesia’s startup scene.

eFishery was valued at $1.4 billion in 2023 after it raised $200 million from Abu Dhabi’s 42XFund and some of its earlier investors.

In total, global investors plowed around $315 million into eFishery’s preferred shares over five funding rounds, according to the presentation. In late 2024, the company was rocked by allegations of misconduct and inflated sales and profits, which led to the dismissal of its co-founders Gibran Huzaifah and Chrisna Aditya.

The FTI presentation estimated that eFishery had around $50 million in cash as of around mid-February, and recommended that much of the business be wound down. “The cash balance continues to deplete without a restructuring plan in place,” it said.

That’s bad news for preference shareholders, all of whom would be paid back on an equal, or pari passu basis in the event of a liquidation. The investors could get back 9.5 cents on the dollar under an “optimistic scenario,” and just 8.3 cents on the dollar under a “conservative scenario, according to the presentation. Abu Dhabi’s G42, which invested $100 million in the April 2023 round, may get just $8.3 million back less than two years later.

A spokesperson for FTI Consulting declined to comment, the report added. SoftBank didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours, while a Temasek spokesperson declined to comment. G42 didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment, according to the report.

Before its downfall, eFishery said its business revolved around installing AI-driven smart fish feeders, sensors and automated supply chains that connected farmers to buyers via smartphone apps. It also helped farmers obtain financing from peer-to-peer lenders and financial institutions to pay for their feed and operational costs.

The company had claimed to have more than 400,000 fish feeders deployed, and investigators initially estimated the number was closer to 24,000. The current estimate is just 6,300, of which only 600 are sending back data, according to the presentation.

The investigators also found that there was a high default rate on the financing arrangements, and that eFishery bears all losses when farmers fail to repay their loans. “In theory, the proceeds from the harvest or cash collected from farmers should be repaid back to the lenders,” the presentation said. “In practice, however, eFishery faced significant challenges when it comes to collection from borrowers.”

According to the report, about 76 percent of eFishery’s $68 million in accounts receivable were deemed as bad debt more than 60 days overdue, with the company ultimately liable for the bulk of loans it facilitated with banks, information from the presentation showed.

“Substantial costs would need to be incurred to realise or recover these outstanding amounts from borrowers who are scattered all across the country,” it said.

eFishery’s fish and shrimp businesses were operating on thin margins and “severely loss making,” the presentation said. Key apps were not connected to eFishery’s accounting systems, and many farmers were manually matched with buyers, the investigators found.

Much of the advanced technology that the firm touted did not work as claimed, according to the presentation.

None of eFishery’s PondTag sensors that were supposed to help remotely judge water quality and automate fish and shrimp feeders had been deployed. The limited data collection meant fish feed predictions were wrong almost half the time, the document said.

In essence, eFishery was “operating like a traditional trading business without technology,” the presentation said, noting that this helped explain the company’s large workforce of almost 2,600 employees at its peak in early 2024.

Founded in 2013, eFishery said it is the first Aquaculture Technology startup in Asia that develops innovations in the aquaculture field. eFishery disrupts traditional fish farming methods and provides cutting edge solutions in the aquaculture ecosystem by offering an end-to-end platform that provides access to feed, financing, and market to fish and shrimp farmers.

eFishery aims to build an aquaculture ecosystem in Indonesia that is not only profitable but also sustainable to the farmers, buyers, and to all stakeholders, information from its Linkedin page showed.

eFishery announced it has raised $200 million in its Series D funding round in 2023, earning its unicorn status.

The round was led by Abu Dhabi-based global fund manager 42XFund and backed by Malaysia’s largest public sector pension fund, Kumpulan Wang Persaraan (Diperbadankan) (KWAP), Switzerland-based asset manager responsAbility, early investor multi-stage venture capital firm 500 Global and other new investors, along with existing investors such as Northstar, Temasek, and SoftBank.

Temasek-backed Indonesian unicorn eFishery suspends founders, appoints interim CEO, CFO – report