The feud between co-founder Ashneer Grover and fintech player BharatPe continued on Thursday with the former taking a fresh dig at the company for first quarter's de-growth, along with maximum cash burn.
"So I just heard BharatPe closed its first quarter of ‘degrowth’ and ‘maximum cash burn’ under able (sic) leadership of Rajnish Kumar and Suhail Sameer," Grover tweeted.
"Chaabi chheenna and hatti chalana do alag alag skills hai!," he said in a mixture of Hindi and Punjabi on twitter. Translated, Grover's tweet's means that wresting control is different from running a business. "Ab Nani yaad aayegi- markets are the ultimate test and truth", Grover's tweet added, referring to a Hindi proverb which warns of hard lessons to be learnt.
BharatPe defended the company's performance last quarter.
In a statement, BharatPe said that it "registered the strongest quarter in its history".
"We have registered 4x growth in our overall revenue over the same period last year. On a sequential-quarter basis, the growth has been 30%, despite the third wave of Covid-19. Comparing month-on-month, all our metrics have grown at the fastest pace, i.e., merchant Total payments value, i.e., TPV (17%), consumer TPV (39%), loans facilitated (31%), and revenue (21%) in March 2022 over Feb 2022," the company said.
"Going forward, we are tracking well to break even on our merchant business and further strengthen our consumer business. We request the media to take official comments from the company and not from former employees who no longer have business information."
BharatPe chairman Rajnish Kumar is also former chairman of country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI). Earlier this month, Kumar told Economic Times that the BharatPe board, management aiming for IPO in 18-24 months.
Grover, who had to go on leave in January following allegations of using abusive language against Kotak Mahindra Bank staff and of fraudulent practices, had accused CEO Sameer of siding with the investors to remove him from office.
BharatPe, which allows shop owners to make digital payments through QR codes, last month, first sacked his wife Madhuri Jain which was followed by Grover himself resigning. Thereafter, Grover was stripped of all titles and positions after a third-party audit alleged grave governance lapses under him.
The board and the audit report has alleged Grover of "extensive misappropriation of company funds" by "creating fake vendors" to siphon money and using "company expense accounts" to "enrich themselves and fund their lavish lifestyles."
Grover, 39, also a “shark” on the Indian televised version of Shark Tank, had sparked controversy earlier this year when an audio clip of him allegedly abusing a Kotak Mahindra Bank employee surfaced online.
Breaking his silence over allegations of pushing out embattled co-founder Ashneer Grover, BharatPe CEO Suhail Sameer said he did what was right for the company and investors, and to protect his reputation.
