S
Salvador Meza
Guest
Amy Novogratz and Mike Velings publish their first public statement more than a year after discovering the Indonesian aquaculture startup had fabricated financial data for years, costing the Dutch impact fund approximately $250 million.
April 2026 | Aquaculture Magazine
More than a year after one of the most damaging fraud cases in the history of aquaculture investment came to light, the founders of Dutch impact fund Aqua-Spark have broken their silence. Amy Novogratz and Mike Velings submitted a public statement — their first — sharing their reflections on the eFishery scandal and its consequences for the fund, for investors, and for the broader aquaculture industry. 
The Rise and Fall of Aquaculture’s First Unicorn.
Back in 2024, Bandung, Indonesia-based eFishery was heralded as the first aquaculture unicorn, with a $1.4 billion valuation and a blue-chip investor base that included SoftBank, Temasek, and Aqua-Spark.  The company’s promise was compelling: connecting smallholder fish and shrimp farmers across Indonesia to markets, financing, and better inputs through a technology-driven platform.
Aqua-Spark had been one of eFishery’s earliest backers, leading its $550,000 seed round back in 2015 and reinvesting multiple times over the years.  That early bet seemed to pay off spectacularly — until December 2024, when a whistleblower exposed what investigators would later confirm to be a years-long, systematic deception.
The inquiry found that eFishery had inflated its revenues by $600 million, maintained a dual set of financial books for years, and widely overstated how many smart fish feeders it had actually deployed.  In 2024 alone, the company reported a $16 million profit when in reality it had suffered a $35 million loss. At least $300 million in investors’ money remains unaccounted for. 
A $250 Million Wound
The financial fallout for Aqua-Spark was severe. The fraud cost the Dutch aquaculture investment fund roughly $250 million.  The company’s collapse caused Aqua-Spark to mark down its own asset valuation by nearly half, to approximately $300 million. 
But for Novogratz, the damage went beyond the balance sheet. In their statement, she described a deeper kind of loss: “Discovering that the people you had held up were not who you believed them to be is a different kind of wound.” 
Confronting the Industry Consequences
Beyond the fund’s internal losses, Novogratz and Velings addressed the wider damage to aquaculture’s investment landscape. Part of what made eFishery’s rise so significant was what it was bringing into the sector — mainstream technology investors, large institutional funds, and capital that rarely finds its way into aquaculture. For a space that has long struggled to attract investors beyond dedicated impact funds, that crossover mattered enormously. It was evidence that this industry could compete for serious money on its own merits. When the fraud came to light, that pipeline didn’t just slow. It closed. 
The founders acknowledged that rebuilding that confidence will be difficult. They are also conscious of the broader moment: “Trust and accountability already feel scarce. People are hedging. Institutions are retreating. We are not going to add to that.” 
Confronting Their Own Assumptions
Rather than deflecting responsibility, the founders chose to interrogate their own processes. Over the past year, they have examined their own assumptions about how they assess founders, verify performance data, and uphold governance standards under pressure rather than just on paper. 
Still, Aqua-Spark’s Chief Portfolio Officer Maria Velkova has noted that even after reviewing their due diligence procedures, the fund does not believe much could have been done differently — it was a very well-executed fraud, including a dedicated internal team whose sole purpose was maintaining a second set of books. 
What Was Lost — and What Remains
Novogratz and Velings were careful to separate eFishery’s fraud from its underlying mission. They stated that eFishery did not need to go in this direction. It was a real company with real technology and a genuinely important vision — connecting smallholder fish farmers to markets, financing, and better inputs, and empowering them with the tools to lift their practices and their livelihoods. It should have become an enduring, impactful business. The tragedy is not just what was lost, but what was possible, and what was thrown away. 
Despite the scale of the setback, Aqua-Spark’s investor base has remained committed. Velkova noted that the fund’s limited partners stood up and continued believing in the industry, even as broader worries emerged about a potential ripple effect across the sector. 
A Sector That Must Not Retreat
The founders’ statement is ultimately a call to keep moving forward. The companies in Aqua-Spark’s portfolio that continued working through a year that shook the industry — through difficult capital markets and the weight of having the sector’s most visible name turn out to be a fraud — kept going. That, the founders argue, says something. The sector is chronically underfunded, not because the fundamentals aren’t strong, but because the attention hasn’t followed. eFishery briefly changed that. They cannot let its failure reverse it permanently. 
The full statement by Amy Novogratz and Mike Velings was originally published on LinkedIn and cross-posted by ImpactAlpha.
Aquaculture Magazine covers the global aquaculture industry across species, technology, investment, and sustainability. For editorial inquiries, contact the editorial team at aquaculturemagazine.com.
Read more...
April 2026 | Aquaculture Magazine
More than a year after one of the most damaging fraud cases in the history of aquaculture investment came to light, the founders of Dutch impact fund Aqua-Spark have broken their silence. Amy Novogratz and Mike Velings submitted a public statement — their first — sharing their reflections on the eFishery scandal and its consequences for the fund, for investors, and for the broader aquaculture industry. 
The Rise and Fall of Aquaculture’s First Unicorn.
Back in 2024, Bandung, Indonesia-based eFishery was heralded as the first aquaculture unicorn, with a $1.4 billion valuation and a blue-chip investor base that included SoftBank, Temasek, and Aqua-Spark.  The company’s promise was compelling: connecting smallholder fish and shrimp farmers across Indonesia to markets, financing, and better inputs through a technology-driven platform.
Aqua-Spark had been one of eFishery’s earliest backers, leading its $550,000 seed round back in 2015 and reinvesting multiple times over the years.  That early bet seemed to pay off spectacularly — until December 2024, when a whistleblower exposed what investigators would later confirm to be a years-long, systematic deception.
The inquiry found that eFishery had inflated its revenues by $600 million, maintained a dual set of financial books for years, and widely overstated how many smart fish feeders it had actually deployed.  In 2024 alone, the company reported a $16 million profit when in reality it had suffered a $35 million loss. At least $300 million in investors’ money remains unaccounted for. 
A $250 Million Wound
The financial fallout for Aqua-Spark was severe. The fraud cost the Dutch aquaculture investment fund roughly $250 million.  The company’s collapse caused Aqua-Spark to mark down its own asset valuation by nearly half, to approximately $300 million. 
But for Novogratz, the damage went beyond the balance sheet. In their statement, she described a deeper kind of loss: “Discovering that the people you had held up were not who you believed them to be is a different kind of wound.” 
Confronting the Industry Consequences
Beyond the fund’s internal losses, Novogratz and Velings addressed the wider damage to aquaculture’s investment landscape. Part of what made eFishery’s rise so significant was what it was bringing into the sector — mainstream technology investors, large institutional funds, and capital that rarely finds its way into aquaculture. For a space that has long struggled to attract investors beyond dedicated impact funds, that crossover mattered enormously. It was evidence that this industry could compete for serious money on its own merits. When the fraud came to light, that pipeline didn’t just slow. It closed. 
The founders acknowledged that rebuilding that confidence will be difficult. They are also conscious of the broader moment: “Trust and accountability already feel scarce. People are hedging. Institutions are retreating. We are not going to add to that.” 
Confronting Their Own Assumptions
Rather than deflecting responsibility, the founders chose to interrogate their own processes. Over the past year, they have examined their own assumptions about how they assess founders, verify performance data, and uphold governance standards under pressure rather than just on paper. 
Still, Aqua-Spark’s Chief Portfolio Officer Maria Velkova has noted that even after reviewing their due diligence procedures, the fund does not believe much could have been done differently — it was a very well-executed fraud, including a dedicated internal team whose sole purpose was maintaining a second set of books. 
What Was Lost — and What Remains
Novogratz and Velings were careful to separate eFishery’s fraud from its underlying mission. They stated that eFishery did not need to go in this direction. It was a real company with real technology and a genuinely important vision — connecting smallholder fish farmers to markets, financing, and better inputs, and empowering them with the tools to lift their practices and their livelihoods. It should have become an enduring, impactful business. The tragedy is not just what was lost, but what was possible, and what was thrown away. 
Despite the scale of the setback, Aqua-Spark’s investor base has remained committed. Velkova noted that the fund’s limited partners stood up and continued believing in the industry, even as broader worries emerged about a potential ripple effect across the sector. 
A Sector That Must Not Retreat
The founders’ statement is ultimately a call to keep moving forward. The companies in Aqua-Spark’s portfolio that continued working through a year that shook the industry — through difficult capital markets and the weight of having the sector’s most visible name turn out to be a fraud — kept going. That, the founders argue, says something. The sector is chronically underfunded, not because the fundamentals aren’t strong, but because the attention hasn’t followed. eFishery briefly changed that. They cannot let its failure reverse it permanently. 
The full statement by Amy Novogratz and Mike Velings was originally published on LinkedIn and cross-posted by ImpactAlpha.
Aquaculture Magazine covers the global aquaculture industry across species, technology, investment, and sustainability. For editorial inquiries, contact the editorial team at aquaculturemagazine.com.
Read more...