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.
Grover said he will be back at work on April 1, 2022, he said in a statement issued late Wednesday.
" After much deliberation and introspection, I plan to take temporary leave of absence from Bharate till March end. I will return on or before 1st April 2022. I'll be utilising this period to rejuvenate and refresh myself for our next sprint of value creation. I expect to spend the time thinking more deeply about our next phase of product development, and BharatPe's path to profitability and IPO. I will also double down on investing in myself personally....," Grover said.
On leave. Back on 1st April pic.twitter.com/qzD2Ot4OD9
The leaked sound clip, which went viral on Twitter on 5 January, 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.
