With startups, all that glitters is not necessarily growth

In April 2025, Bloomberg published a report showing that eFishery — once celebrated as Indonesia’s agritech unicorn – was, in fact, simply built on a house of cards (Ed’s note: The report is a most illuminating read). Its founder, Gibran Hilman, admitted in the Bloomberg interview that he had been fudging eFishery’s numbers for years — inflating user counts, farms, and revenues to meet sky-high expectations. 

In reality, audits show actual revenue was only about 25% of what was claimed, turning a supposedly $16 million profit into a $35 million loss. Even after $294 million in funding and a peak valuation above $1.4 billion, the startup was insolvent. 

The fallout has since stunned founders and investors: it exposes how prestigious funding is no safeguard against failure or fraud, and forces us to confront uncomfortable truths about startup culture.

Gibran’s is a story of hopes and hubris. His is a rags-to-riches narrative that sounds straight out of the startup myth. He grew up poor in East Jakarta — his father a construction worker, mother a homemaker — and even slept in mosques when money ran out according to the Bloomberg reporting. As a biology student he put himself through school by farming catfish and selling food. 

In 2013 he built a prototype automatic fish feeder in his garage, reasoning that feed was the biggest cost for farmers. By pitch competitions and sheer chutzpah he caught the eye of early investors, learning “the ABCs of venture capital – how to create a pitch deck, sell his business model”. By 2023 eFishery’s story was the stuff of legend: it had raised $200 million in one round, become “the only fisheries startup to become a unicorn”, and claimed to be transforming thousands of farms with IoT feeders and data analytics. 

The narrative painted Gibran as a hero-founder, championing fish farmers and rural livelihoods: a “poster boy” for how tech could uplift developing countries.

But behind the PR gloss was a darker reality. Within eFishery’s offices and bank statements, pressure and deceit had crept in. As the Bloomberg report dryly notes, eFishery’s real 2024 revenue was $157 million – only a quarter of the $752 million Gibran had claimed. To bridge that gap, Gibran falsified ledgers and even instructed sales teams to sign up phantom farms. 

For example, after a $300 million Series C raise at a $414 million valuation, management set demanding quarterly targets and pressured staff to “sign up clients anyway, even if these companies did not exist”. In effect eFishery invented fake customer accounts and bookings to hit its numbers. Behind the scenes it was a weekly scramble: burning through capital on glossy marketing and unsustainable credit to farmers, even as unpaid farmer loans ballooned past $70 million. It was only a matter of time before the bills came due.

Funding Is Not a Measure of Impact

One clear lesson from this saga is that money alone isn’t a synonym for success. In the startup mythos, raising rounds from SoftBank, Temasek, and Sequoia can feel like a magic talisman — proof that a company is “legit.” But eFishery shows how funding can mask trouble. Even industry experts admit that many capital-intensive startups never reach profitability. In fields like agritech or deep tech, cash is burned for scale long before profits appear. Worse, flashy funding can distort incentives: it pressures founders to chase growth metrics at all costs, rather than steady real progress. 

In eFishery’s case, having blue-chip investors didn’t guarantee anything. Despite due diligence and board seats, investors failed to catch the inconsistencies. As one TechCrunch analysis warns, many VCs “invested too early” and ended up “betting on the founders instead of verifying their user base or traction”. 

For SoftBank and Temasek, eFishery joins a list of high-profile bets (like WeWork and IRL) that soured. The irony is that after pouring in nearly $300 million, the outsiders now face recovering at best a few cents on the dollar; one investor (42X) might recoup only $8.3 million of a $100 million investment.

This episode knocks down the myth of funding as destiny. In Southeast Asia especially, there is a potent startup cult where the mere appearance of a unicorn is celebrated as national pride. Media and policymakers have often lauded tech founders as heroes of development, sometimes sidestepping business fundamentals. But eFishery’s collapse reminds us that even glowing impact narratives must be underpinned by solid numbers. A high valuation and logo on the investor list cannot substitute for actual users, farmers, or earnings. For the Singaporean startup ecosystem and beyond, it’s a wake-up call: due diligence matters as much as destiny.

Success Theatre

Gibran’s rationale for fabricating results was chillingly utilitarian. He likened his choice to an ethical trolley problem: if lying meant creating benefits for thousands of farmers, wasn’t that “net positive” overall? 

“My moral compass is quite mathematical,” Gibran said in the Bloomberg report: “if the number of impacts that I can create... outsizes the potential number of impacts I do to get there then it’s a net positive and you should do it as long as it’s net positive”. In other words, Gibran told himself that the ends justifies the means. He believed “eFishery made an impact” and that securing more funds (even dishonestly) would ultimately help more people.

This line of reasoning reveals a dangerous survival mentality among founders under extreme pressure. In emerging markets, young entrepreneurs often lack social safety nets or lucrative exit markets. Their incentives can skew toward “fake it till you make it,” but taken to unhealthy extremes. When a founder starts seeing their startup as a lifeline for themselves or their community, the temptation to cut corners grows. 

Gibran’s so-called moral calculus was also deeply flawed. In classical trolley problems, there is an option to brake entirely — to delay or seek alternative solutions. But by accepting the investment, he effectively hurt investors and employees with falsehoods. The alleged beneficiaries (farmers) were real, but they deserved a genuinely sustainable company, not a Ponzi-like scheme that would implode. 

By his own admission, the fraud was meant to “give it back to the ecosystem” later — but that gamble blew up in everyone’s faces. It violates basic trust: once a leader resorts to lying, they undermine the very impact they profess to cherish.

The Cult of the Founder

Gibran’s charisma and story also illustrate how easily the cult of the founder can enable such scenarios. Investors love visionary founders who speak the right language: they champion social causes, dream of transformation, and exude relentless confidence. Gibran was “constantly promoting a wholesome vision” of feeding the nation’s fish and shrimp farms, winning praise from VCs and media. He learned to perform the role of the humble, impact-driven tech hero. In turn, his backers were dazzled by the narrative. 

It is all too common in our ecosystem: fundraising often becomes a production. Founders script growth stories for press, dress the part, and put on theater for demos. Many VCs confess privately that they don’t even try to verify everything, because they have to show loyalty to the founder narrative. As TechCrunch reports, investors often shrug off suspicious claims with “maybe he’s just very focused on the product” rather than digging in. 

This blind spot is dangerous. By glamorizing spectacle — the impossible user growth, the predatory pricing, the 24/7 hustling founder — we disincentivize honesty. Gibran’s tale is a caution: if the system rewards only the performance of success, some will choose the stage over substance.

Flawed Incentives

We must scrutinize why even smart investors missed the red flags. On one hand, founders in rapidly growing startups feel they have no safe way to say “we messed up” without losing everything. Gibran’s own board and investors kept increasing targets (often set by consultants with their own incentives), leaving him little room to breathe. Once the revenue engine sputtered, he felt trapped: any admission of trouble would have meant a death spiral of layoffs and legal action. 

On the other hand, VCs have perverse incentives too. High-profile funds chase unicorn valuations with FOMO: every deal is rumored internally as “the next Grab or Gojek.” Due diligence can become perfunctory — analysts cross their fingers and say “we’ll catch problems later.” 

In eFishery’s case, some diligence firms simply visited a pre-selected list of farms provided by eFishery, turning checks into site tours according to the Bloomberg report. A “random” spot-check here and there could be gamed; eFishery’s COO even coached farmers on what questions to expect. No one wanted to kill the deal. The glowing press coverage (often arranged by the company itself) and the prestige of having SoftBank on the cap table became more important than proving the metrics.

This power imbalance is stark: once a startup craves funding, investors effectively hold the negotiation keys. Founders may feel they owe them unquestioning loyalty. But eFishery shows that investor entitlement can go too far. A better system would empower VCs to demand transparency without fear of missing out on deals. As one investor quoted in TechCrunch put it, calling off diligence is a form of laziness: “we live in the information age – we have no excuse not to verify the damn founder”.

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Impact vs. Ego

At the heart of the collapse was a tension between doing good and indulging ego. Gibran cast himself as an evangelist for fish farmers, but he also had to become the Goldilocks entrepreneur – too successful to do anything other than innovate at lightning speed, yet humble enough to be relatable. 

His “trolley problem” defense was a rationalisation, not a real dilemma. In truth, even Gibran later admitted, he could have chosen to halt growth and fix the books (“hit the brakes and run over no one,” as one analogy puts it) instead of accelerating into fraud. Instead, pride and external pressure pushed him to double down.

Founders must remember: genuine impact doesn’t need to be built on lies. If a path to profit that also helps farmers exists, it will remain possible with honest course-corrections. Conversely, ego-driven rationales — “we have to raise valuation at all costs,” “we deserve to be a unicorn,” or “I’m the only one who can save my people” —lead to moral blind spots. 

In eFishery’s wake, it’s clear that a startup’s social mission can become a Trojan horse. Claiming moral high ground does not exempt one from ethical scrutiny.

Lessons for the Ecosystem

The eFishery saga leaves no easy answers, but there are urgent takeaways for everyone.

For founders, the lesson is both urgent and uncomfortable: money isn’t (and shouldn’t be) the only goal. The chase for ever-larger fundraising milestones can easily spiral into a cycle of overpromising and underdelivering, where pressure to perform overtakes principled decision-making. When growth stumbles, the instinct might be to hide the cracks — but the braver path is to be honest, early. Investors are often more willing to work with realism than with fantasy. 

Renegotiating terms, slowing down, or even pivoting entirely can be survivable; deception, in contrast, corrodes everything. Transparency must become cultural — not an afterthought but an operating principle. Even those building for social good must uphold financial rigour, subject themselves to audits, and embed external accountability. 

And perhaps most of all, founders need to embrace humility — not as a marketing posture, but as a way of leading with integrity. Authentic modesty builds the kind of trust that performative “hustle” can’t.

For investors, the responsibility is no less critical. Verification should never be left to consultants or confined to slick pitch decks. 

The fundamental questions — are these numbers plausible, and who is actually paying for the product? — must be asked with persistence and scepticism. Independent corroboration should be standard, not optional. Charisma should never be a substitute for rigour. 

To avoid being swept up by the illusion of success, venture firms must actively cultivate a culture where raising doubts isn’t punished but encouraged. Just as public companies are subject to audits, startups — especially those commanding hundreds of millions — should face similar scrutiny. 

The structure of investments also deserves interrogation: when too many firms join a syndicate, the diffusion of responsibility becomes dangerous. Someone must take the lead in keeping things honest. In the rush to get into the next big thing, too many seem afraid to be the one to say, “Hold on.”

And for the wider community — the media, policymakers, ecosystem builders — it’s time we tell better startup stories. We need narratives that don’t just lionise unicorn valuations or founder origin myths but ones that celebrate sustainability, ethics, and transparent progress. 

There is quiet power in the company that grows methodically, that admits failure and learns publicly, that resists the temptation to overinflate for applause. Regulation and journalism in Asia have a role to play here: not to criminalise every misstep, but to raise the bar for truth without discouraging ambition. 

And always, we must challenge the prevailing gospel of “move fast and break things” — because in cases like this, what breaks is not systems, but trust, livelihoods, and real people.

The fallout will likely make VCs more cautious — for a time. Qualgro’s Weisheng Neo predicts a pause in large check sizes: investors may “slow down” on deals that are “heavy on execution, with not much core asset,” for a year or two. But the solution is not to stop funding innovation; it is to fund it more wisely. eFishery’s collapse should spur more rigorous deal-making, not cold feet.

In the end, funding does not confer infallibility. A million-dollar cheque doesn’t guarantee a million happy customers or any at all. Gibran Hilman was once hailed as a visionary who would transform aquaculture in Southeast Asia; today he’s a cautionary tale. For founders, investors, and the startup-curious public alike, the lesson is clear: the real success story is one built on truth, however mundane, not on unicorn dust.