“No BharatPe without me,” says Ashneer Grover as senior executives quit the fintech giant

“There is no BharatPe without Ashneer Grover,” he wrote.

Grover shared a report from LiveMint on his Twitter handle, “Good people don’t work for companies. They work with magical founders to create, build and grow! There is no BharatPe India without Ashneer Grover.”

Earlier, two people aware of the matter had told Mint that three top executives resigned from BharatPe. The top executive who submitted their papers are – Vijay Aggarwal, Chief Technology Officer; Nehul Malhotra, Head, PostPe; and Rajat Jain, product manager for lending and consumer products.

Apart from this, there were also two to three exits at the middle management level, including those of Geetanshu Singla, VP-technology, and Manas Poddar, who was program manager at BharatPe.

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BharatPe, which allows shopkeepers to make digital payments through QR codes, had stripped Grover of all titles and positions after a third-party audit alleged serious governance lapses under him. The company had first fired Madhuri Jain which was followed by Grover’s resignation and the company stripped him of co-founder and other titles for alleged “extensive misuse of company funds” by “creating bogus suppliers” to siphon money and use “company expense accounts” “to “enrich themselves and fund their lavish lifestyles.”

BharatPe CEO Suhail Sameer broke his silence on allegations of ousting embattled co-founder Grover, saying he was doing what was right for the company and investors, and to protect his reputation.

Meanwhile, since the beginning of 2022, BharatPe has been mired in controversies and seen quite a few exits at the top level. By June 2022, the company’s chief revenue officer Nishit Sharma had quit. That same month, BharatPe’s founding member Satyam Nathani, who was one of the key members of the technology team, had also resigned to pursue his entrepreneurial ambitions.

The biggest setback was the exit of Bhavik Koladiya who ran the technology and product of the fintech giant. He ended his association with the company in the last week of June.

These exits come at a time when the fintech company is transitioning to a professionally run entity. BharatPe, which is currently focused on achieving profitability, is also gearing up for an IPO in 18-24 months.

BharatPe was started in July 2017 and was incorporated in March 2018 by Koladiya and Shashvat Nakrani, then studying at IIT-Delhi, as co-founders with each owning 50 percent. Three months later in June 2018, Grover joined as the third co-founder. In August 2021, the company entered the unicorn club after raising $370 million led by Tiger Global. Former SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar was appointed chairman of BharatPe in October 2021.