Ilya Kravtsov: Inside Indonesia’s Startup Meltdown, eFishery’s Hidden Fallout & How Real Founders Survive – E590

Ilya Kravtsov, Co-Founder of Ringkas, joins Jeremy Au to unpack the rise and fall of Indonesia’s lending wave, the ripple effects of the eFishery scandal, and the hard lessons founders must absorb to build sustainable startups. They examine how early hype misaligned business models, how fraud damages more than just a company, and why radical transparency is key to long-term leadership. Ilya shares how Ringkas scaled without lending, why developer partnerships unlocked bank adoption, and how he carefully built a diversified cap table to preserve founder control.

03:00 Indonesia’s VC ecosystem matured: In 2012, only three VCs wrote 20,000 dollar checks and most people used BlackBerrys. By 2021, founders raised 5 million dollar pre-seeds with no product. 

05:24 Lending distorted metrics: Startups wrongly recorded loan disbursements as revenue and used inflated valuation multiples on their loan books.

08:27 Growth hacks vs. fraud: Ilya draws the line at legality and disclosure. He says growth hacks are common and acceptable only if transparent.

13:32 Ecosystem fallout from eFishery: Ilya dismisses the defense that fraud was standard practice. He says many founders now face reputational damage, blocked financing, and collateral damage from one high-profile failure.

14:10 Ringkas avoided lending: Rather than lend directly, Ringkas built infrastructure between banks and developers.

17:38 Banks adopted due to volume: Traditional banks opened up to Ringkas under pressure from digital banks and low mortgage penetration. 

20:41 Cap table strategy: Ilya capped investor ownership below 10 percent, preferring a wide base of angel and neutral investors. 

Watch, listen or read the full insight at https://www.bravesea.com/blog/ilya-kravtsov-truth-over-hype

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