On Dec 15, 2024, DealStreetAsia published an exclusive news break that shook up the Indonesian startup industry — eFishery’s board had suspended its co-founders Gibran Huzaifah and Chrisna Aditya following an investigation into alleged financial irregularities at the company.
The alleged fraud is understood to date back to 2018 when the aquatech startup was raising its Series A round, according to yet another explosive news break by DealStreetAsia on Jan 16, citing several sources familiar with the matter.
Initial findings by a global firm hired to conduct a forensic audit on eFishery reveal a complex scheme of alleged financial manipulation involving dual financial reporting, setting up of nominee companies, and fabricated transactions that purportedly inflated the company’s revenue and profit figures for years, the sources mentioned above said.
The eFishery saga has sent shockwaves across Indonesia’s startup and investor community. At the sixth edition of DealStreetAsia’s Indonesia PE-VC Summit, which concluded in Jakarta on Thursday, Patrick Walujo, co-founder and managing partner of Northstar Group, said “The damage they [eFishery] have done to Indonesia, the startup community, and our credibility is massive. So we’ll get to the bottom of it, and I think we’ll take this very seriously.” Northstar is one of the investors in the aquatech startup.
The summit, with 10 insightful sessions featuring 35+ most prominent speakers, closely examined the opportunities and challenges in SE Asia’s top market. During his keynote session, Walujo emphasised that Indonesia is “too big to ignore” for investors and tech companies given its large market size, abundant natural resources, and growing consumer base.
The day-long conference, which attracted over 650 attendees, touched upon private equity and venture capital strategies expected to play out in Indonesia in 2025 and beyond. Here are the top takeaways from the summit.
We also released our Conference Report titled Mapping SEA & Indonesia’s 2024 Journey, which painted a sobering picture of 2024’s funding climate as startups raised only 54.6% of the capital secured in 2020, the first year of the pandemic.
Moving on to the other headlines from this week.
LP-GP updates
French private equity firm Ardian has closed a record-breaking secondaries fund at $30 billion with significant contributions from investors in the Asia-Pacific region.
Swiss impact investor responsAbility Investments has raised a total of $350 million as part of the third closing of its $500 million Asia climate investment strategy.
KKR-backed financial services group Avendus Capital has hit the first close of its third fund with $98 million in capital commitments.
India’s SaaS-focused Cornerstone Ventures has hit the first close of its $200-million second investment vehicle at around $40 million.
Dutch development bank FMO is considering a proposal to invest $25 million in Northern Arc Investments IFSC Trust, a $125-million climate-focused debt fund.
Oriza Hua, the integrated circuit industry investment platform of state-owned Oriza Holding, has held the first close of its debut M&A fund at 1.2 billion yuan ($163.7 million).
The PE business of Vietnam-based Asia Business Builders has closed its second fund with $70 million in capital commitment, lower than its initial target of $100 million.
Data-led stories
This week we also brought you the monthly startup funding data from Greater China and SE Asian markets.
PE and VC investors raced to wrap up 2024 with more signed term sheets, as dealmaking activity in Greater China rebounded to record highs in December. In the last month of 2024, privately held companies in the region raised almost $11 billion through the completion of 239 deals, according to our proprietary data.
The deal value went up by 87.2% from the $5.9 billion recorded in November, while the deal count struck an uptick of 28.5% month-over-month.
At the fag end of a grim year, startups in Southeast Asia raked in big moolah from investors in December, ending 2024 on an optimistic note. They raised $692.2 million, marking over a 300% jump from November, buoyed by the resurfacing of megadeals. The last time the region saw transactions worth $100 million or more was in June 2024.
2024 was one of the most tumultuous years for China’s markets amid a sluggish economy, property crisis, intensifying geopolitical risks, and looming restrictions under Trump 2.0. Despite this, the world’s second-largest economy managed to secure multi-billion-dollar M&As. In this feature, we looked at the 10 largest M&A deals in China last year.
Deal news
Singapore- and Switzerland-based digital asset bank Sygnum has hit the final close of its latest funding round, bringing the total capital raised to $58 million. The final close, which comes a year after hitting its first close in January 2024, has helped the firm hit a post-money valuation of over $1 billion.
Saarathi Finance, an MSME-focused NBFC in India, has initiated talks with a host of private equity firms such as Paragon Partners, TVS Capital Funds and Evolvence India, alongside impact investor Lok Capital, to raise funding as it carves out its expansion plans.
Indian contract research, development, and manufacturing organisation Aragen (formerly GVK Biosciences) has secured $100 million in funding from healthcare-focused private equity firm Quadria Capital. The PE firm has taken a minority stake in Aragen through the transaction, valuing the company at around $1.4 billion.
Real estate private equity firm Gaw Capital Partners has acquired a 45% stake in Tokyo-based Agility Asset Advisers to enhance its reach in the Japanese market.
India’s Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail will raise $500 million by selling shares, including to US investment firm Fidelity.
Interviews
While Southeast Asia represents heaps of opportunities for healthcare investments in general, Singapore-based August Global Partners is particularly bullish on AI-driven healthcare solutions. “AI healthcare is probably the lowest hanging fruit. It is one of the most monetisable and commercialisable,” said founding partner Basil Lui.
In India, where cryptocurrencies are not banned per se, the apex bank maintains that virtual digital assets need more scrutiny, and its lofty taxes have deterred retail investors and venture capital players alike. Sumit Gupta, founder of one of India’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges CoinDCX, told DealStreetAsia: “It would be a tremendous mistake if India doesn’t embrace crypto now. The effort required to catch up later would be much greater.”
Lastly, we also launched our private equity-focused newsletter – Beyond the Buyout. In the first edition, we look at what industry executives are thinking about 2025, and what could help GPs generate DPIs in the year ahead. Watch this space for significant PE developments in Asia.
