IN FOCUS
In today’s newsletter, we look at:
- How aquatech firms are dealing with the ripples of eFishery’s scandal
- How quantum computing’s latest development could change everything
Welcome to On the Rise! Delivered every alternate Tuesday via email and through the Tech in Asia website, this free newsletter spotlights emerging startups and the biggest trends in the tech ecosystem. If you’re not a subscriber, get access by registering here.
Hi there,
About four months after the Terra-Luna collapse, I sat down with a woman in Kuala Lumpur who wanted to tell me about her new startup.
The company used a blockchain to validate personal documents. While the founder wanted to talk about the business, she avoided talking about anything Web3-related. I asked why.
“Because investors won’t touch you if they think you’re in crypto,” she said.
When industries face the kind of crisis that makes the general public think everyone involved is a crook, it’s especially tough for the companies who didn’t do anything wrong. It’s an issue that some of Indonesia’s agritech startups are currently facing, thanks to a fraud scandal at eFishery.
For this week’s Big Story, Putra talks to agritech founders in Indonesia who are feeling the heat from eFishery’s fall. One founder said that some customers now think that “all tech startups are troubled or dishonest.” That’s a huge issue for a country that exported marine products worth US$4.8 billion in 2024.
To make things worse, the eFishery business model has been called into question. The situation is so severe that investors in Indonesia’s marine technology no longer know how to assess the risks involved in the industry.
Some of the blame for the ongoing crisis is being aimed at investors, who are held accountable for not looking into eFishery’s practices closely enough.
In this week’s Hot Take, I’ll be attempting to tackle the latest news in the world of quantum computing. Since the topic is extremely complex, I tried to make some sense of it. But first, our Big Story.
– Scott
P.S. From March onward, the On the Rise newsletter will move to a fortnightly schedule and be in your mailbox every alternate Tuesday. The next newsletter is scheduled for March 11.
BIG STORY
As eFishery flounders, aquatech firms refuse to sink
HOT TAKE
DEEP READS
EMERGING NEWS
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