Bengaluru, April 11
Former MD and co-founder of BharatPe, Ashneer Grover, has hit back at CEO Suhail Sameer’s claim that the company recorded all-time high growth in March.
“He is happy thinking all of us are fools and he can pass off 10 per cent bigger month as growth without giving any absolute numbers. My sense is PostPe, which was run under me and Nehul and had nothing to do with Suhail, is the only thing which would have grown,” Grover said in a message to BusinessLine.
Grover also shared BharatPe’s growth numbers from December 21, when he was leading the company. He said BharatPe’s payments TPV was $1,100 million in December, and new loans given to merchants in the month were 36,000, and PostPe TPV was $27 million.
BharatPe did not respond to BusinessLine queries, till the time of press.
In March, BharatPe claims to have recorded 39 per cent month-on-month growth in consumer TPV, 31 per cent growth in loans facilitated for merchants and consumer, and 17 per cent growth in merchant TPV. BharatPe has also announced that it plans to do an IPO in the next 18 to 24 months. The fintech firm said it has $400 million in the bank, and the monthly burn is $4 million. The company exited March with about $100 million in revenues, which is said to have grown 4x in FY22 compared to FY21.
The company released the numbers, after Grover’s post on Twitter last weekwhich said: “So I just heard @bharatpeindia (BharatPe) closed its first quarter of ‘degrowth’ and ‘maximum cash burn’ under able (sic) leadership of Rajnish Kumar and Suhail Sameer. .”
BharatPe is also reported to have received a notice from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs seeking information about the company’s operations, former co-founder Bhavik Koladiya’s share in the company, among other things. Interestingly, Grover recently told a publication that Koladiya’s stake in BharatPe was bought by him, Shashvat Nakrani, Sequoia Capital and BEENEXT. In terms of shareholding, Sequoia Capital (19.6 per cent), Coatue (12.4 per cent) and Ribbit Capital (11.0 per cent) hold the largest individual stakes in the fintech start-up. Ashneer Grover holds about 9.5 per cent stake.
In March 2022, the fintech firm alleged that the Grover family engaged in massive misappropriation of company funds, and BharatPe reserved all rights to take legal action against him and his family. BharatPe had said in the statement: “The Grover family and their relatives engaged in extensive misappropriation of company funds, including, but not limited to, creating fake vendors through which they siphoned money away from the company’s expense account and grossly abused company expense accounts in order to enrich themselves and fund their lavish lifestyles.” BharatPe’s statement also noted that as a result of his misdeeds, Grover is no longer “an employee, a founder, or a director of the company.”