Keong Hee Huat Chai, all! I can assure you today’s piece wasn’t inspired by yee sang, the colourful raw fish salad consumed during this time of the year. Or a certain politician since it’s coincidentally the year of the (wood) snake.
If you missed Monday’s newsbreak on the Dana Pemacu private equity initiative 👇🏾
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A few months ago, a Malaysian venture capitalist told a bunch of investors, “This is going to be BIG! Larger than Grab!” He was comparing the potential of Indonesian aquatech firm eFishery against internet firm Grab.
The investors walked away bemused. They wondered what he was smoking and wanted some. Fast forward to today, eFishery is indeed larger than Grab – the Indonesian firm is embroiled in fraud allegations.
It all began with regional financial publication DealStreetAsia (DSA) running a series of exposes a few weeks ago. Then, a 55-page leaked draft report by consulting firm FTI made rounds. The allegations in the draft were too big to ignore that even newswire Bloomberg picked it up.
There’s a Malaysian angle, of course. Millions of ringgit were sunk into eFishery. All of the money, including the Malaysian investments, are not expected to be recovered.
There are some cautionary lessons, too, since the Malaysian government has signalled its intention to keep wading into alternative investments, such as private equity and venture capital.
Today’s brief takes a look at the findings of leaked draft report, where Malaysian money got burnt (no-brainer, since the main pic is a dead giveaway), some of the twists and turns from the Malaysian side when it came to investing in the startup and the longstanding grift within the VC and startup space.