'We're past this': After fraud halved its assets, aquaculture investor eyes next bets
1 apr. 2026
21:25
After a tumultuous year, Dutch aquaculture investment firm Aqua-Spark is looking to the future.
We sat down with the firm's Maria Velkova to discuss the aquaculture investing landscape, where the opportunities lie, and how it's recovering after a high-profile fraud in its portfolio.
"It felt like a Netflix documentary I was experiencing from the inside," she says.
We sat down with the firm's Maria Velkova to discuss the aquaculture investing landscape, where the opportunities lie, and how it's recovering after a high-profile fraud in its portfolio.
"It felt like a Netflix documentary I was experiencing from the inside," she says.
When the aquaculture sector's first and only unicorn collapsed in scandal last year, it almost took its earliest investor down with it.
eFishery, the Indonesian agritech darling backed by SoftBank and Temasek, had reached a $1.4bn valuation. But in December 2024, a whistleblower exposed what investigators later found to be widespread fraud. The inquiry found the startup had inflated its revenues by $600m, ran dual financial books fo...