BharatPe’s Grover goes on voluntary leave till March-end
The move comes amid rising concerns over Grover’s image after a sound clip went viral
MUMBAI: Ashneer Grover, Co-founder and Managing Director of BharatPe, has informed the company’s Board of Directors that he will be taking a voluntary leave of absence till the end of March. The move comes amid rising concerns over the co-founder’s image after an anonymous sound clip went viral on social media earlier this month, alleging that Grover used abusive language against a banker.
“For now, the Board has accepted Ashneer’s decision, which we agree is in the best interests of the company, our employees and investors, and the millions of merchants we support each day. BharatPe will continue to be ably led by our Chief Executive Officer Suhail Sameer and our strong management team,” BharatPe said in a statement on Wednesday.
The leaked sound clip, which went viral on Twitter on January 5, was allegedly an abusive phone call recording between Grover and a banker from Kotak Wealth Management. The conversation between the two was about Kotak not being able to finance for an initial public offering (IPO). In a statement, Kotak Mahindra Bank had also immediately said that it was considering taking legal action against Grover.
Grover, a former investment banker with Kotak Mahindra Bank, had earlier denied all the allegations and dismissed the audio clip as a “fake” through a tweet. Grover simultaneously accused scamsters of targeting him on Twitter.
“Folks. Chill! It’s a FAKE audio by some scamster trying to extort funds (US$ 240K in bitcoins). I refused to buckle. I’ve got more character. And Internet has got enough scamsters :) (sic),” Grover had said.
However, Grover deleted the tweet a couple of days later.
Grover’s voluntary leave also follows a few recent media reports that alleged him of having locked horns with investors. Grover is also one of the sharks, on the Indian franchisee reality show of the eponymous American series ‘Shark Tank,’ where his aggressive behaviour was questioned by many investors when he lost his temper on an entrepreneur who was pitching an idea at Shark Tank India.
Grover, an IIT-Delhi and IIM-Ahmedabad alumni, founded BharatPe in 2018 with Shashvat Nakrani. The fintech firm operates UPI QR code-based payments app for small and medium businesses.
The company, had entered the unicorn club in August last year. Unicorns are startups valued at $1 billion or more. Recently, VCCircle had reported that the firm was in talks to raise Series F funding round at a valuation of $3.8-4 billion.
Earlier, as the dispute between BharatPe founder Ashneer Grover and Kotak Mahindra Bank over IPO financing escalated sharply, the bank’s wealth management unit pledged to pursue legal action over Grover’s use of abusive language and threats.
Kotak Wealth Management, represented by law firm Khaitan and Co., in response to Grover’s legal notice, had said it reserves the right to pursue legal action for the threats to the lives of its employees. Mint has reviewed a copy of the notice. The contents of the legal communication also dispute Grover’s public denial of the phone call. Kotak Wealth Management had said it filed appropriate responses to legal notices sent by Grover. “Notice was received by us and was replied to appropriately at the time, including placing on record our objections to inappropriate language used by Mr. Grover. ”