We are proud to share that DealStreetAsia’s exclusive newsbreaks and extensive coverage of the unravelling of Indonesian aquaculture unicorn eFishery has bagged the WAN-IFRA Asian Digital Media Award 2025 under the Best Business & Financial News Story category.
The prestigious Asian media awards were announced in Singapore on November 5.
Our correspondents in Indonesia, Marsya Nabila and Gita Rossiana, have been ahead on every major development related to the collapse of the country’s most high-profile aquaculture startup.
It started with a scoop in December 2024 that shook Indonesia’s and Southeast Asia’s startup scene: The board of eFishery had suspended its co-founders, Gibran Huzaifah and Chrisna Aditya, following an investigation into alleged financial irregularities.
That moment set off months of agenda-setting coverage. To date, our newsroom has published more than a dozen exclusives tracking the company’s unraveling.
Here is a selection of stories in the series:
eFishery’s board suspends co-founders Gibran Huzaifah, Chrisna Aditya amid probe
The unravelling of a unicorn: What went wrong at eFishery
Forensic audit alleges Temasek-backed eFishery inflated revenue nearly 5x
eFishery investors could recover up to 10 cents on the dollar: FTI report
Temasek disappointed by eFishery’s debacle that spooked SE Asia
The eFishery revelations triggered one of the most significant reckonings in Southeast Asia’s private capital markets, as almost $600 million in sales from this agritech unicorn were found to have been faked.
Investor confidence, especially in late-stage, high-valuation deals, was visibly shaken.
Sovereign wealth funds like Temasek publicly expressed disappointment, while other leading backers quietly reassessed exposure to similar growth-stage bets.
The series also underscored how one high-profile collapse can ripple across supply chains, impact rural farming communities reliant on such platforms, and erode trust in sectors critical to food security and sustainable development.
For DealStreetAsia, this series reinforces our role as a market-moving publication. Our reporters, spread across SE Asia, India, and Greater China, worked in close collaboration to verify leads, secure internal documents, and publish scoops ahead of much larger competitors—a model of cross-border teamwork we will carry into future investigations.
Our exclusive, sustained coverage has been cited and followed by major domestic and international media, further cementing our credibility as the go-to source for high-stakes investment news and investigative takes.
The eFishery series has consistently ranked among our most-read and most-shared content of the year, drawing significant engagement from GPs, LPs, founders, and policymakers across the region.
This recognition from WAN-IFRA underscores our commitment to original, deeply reported journalism that drives conversations across Asia’s private capital and startup ecosystems.
A heartfelt thank you to our readers, subscribers, and partners for believing in independent business journalism.
