After facing setback in an arbitration case which he filed in Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) against BharatPe for launching a probe in financial misconduct against him, the fintech platform’s MD and Co-Founder Ashneer Grover has resigned from the firm.
“I write this with a heavy heart as today I am being forced to bid adieu to a company of which I am a founder,” Grover wrote in an email to the employees.
He added that he was being unfairly targeted with baseless allegations to damage his and his family’s reputation.
“I say with my head held high that today this company stands as a leader in the fintech world. Since the beginning of 2022, unfortunately, I’ve been embroiled in baseless and targeted attacks on me and my family by a few individuals who are ready not only to harm me and my reputation but also harm the reputation of the company, which they are ostensibly trying to protect,” Mr. Grover wrote in a letter to the board.
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Ashneer further lamented that he was embroiled in a baseless battle to save his reputation as an innovative entrepreneur in which the real loser is the firm BharatPe itself.
“From being celebrated as the face of Indian entrepreneurship and an inspiration to the Indian youth to build their own businesses, I am now wasting myself fighting a long, lonely battle against my own investors and management. Unfortunately, in this battle, the management has lost of what is actually at stake – BharatPe,” Ashneer further wrote in the letter.
Grover has repeatedly maintained that the probe was malicious and motivated in nature and that he had stopped perceiving himself as a founder.
“... It is sad that you have even lost touch with the founder. For you, the founder of the company has been reduced to a button to be pressed when needed. I cease to be a human for you. Today, you have chosen to believe in gossip and rumours about me instead of having a frank conversation,” Grover wrote further.
He complained that he was being humiliated by the whole controversy and said that he was treated like a liability by the investors.
“The fact of the matter is that today you believe that I have served my utility and so incrementally I am just becoming a liability. And since the investor template to make an unwanted founder go away is to make them the villain of the piece, that’s what you have gone and done … Today I am being vilified and treated in the most disgraceful manner,” he complained in the letter.
Last month, Grover initiated talks with the investors to fully exit the company, selling his 9.5 percent stake, as per media reports.
Ashneer’s exit comes on the back of controversies surrounding financial irregularities as well as a leaked audio clip in which Grover is allegedly abusing a Kotak Mahindra Bank employee. Post-leak, he had been on temporary leave.
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Regarding the financial irregularities, a primary investigation undertaken by Alvarez and Marsal (A&M) had uncovered false transactions encompassing payments to ghost vendors and invoice irregularities to justify certain spends involving his wife.
Ashneer had also written a note to the company’s board early last month seeking the removal of CEO Sameer Suhail. The letter had the consent of another co-founder Shashvat Nakrani.
BharatPe is a fintech startup currently valued at USD2.85 billion.
