According to media sources, BharatPe co-founder Ashneer Grover requested a large payment of Rs 4,000 crore from investors in order to exit the company. Grover has requested the investors to buy out his ownership in the company if they want him to leave.
In an exclusive interview with MoneyControl, Ashneer said:
“What have I done to resign? This is like execution before trial. I am the MD (managing director). I run the company. If the board thinks I don’t need to be the MD and someone else should run the company, please put my Rs 4,000 crore on the table and take the key away from me,” Grover said.
“If you want to buy me out you want to buy me out at the fair market value, right? In my view the fair market value is $6 billion. Either I’ll run the company or they buy me out, there is no third option,” he added.
When it secured $370 million from Tiger Global, Coatue, and others last year, BharatPe was valued at $3 billion. “My merchant business is 50 percent higher today than it was in May 2021, when the round was priced.” I now have a bank licence, something I did not have previously. I created the largest P2P (peer-to-peer) platform, 12 percent Club, which was previously unavailable. PostPe is a BNPL (Buy Now Pay Later) game that I created. In addition to obtaining the licence, we merged PMC (Bank). “I feel highly confident in conducting a $6 billion valuation round if I were running the company,” Grover added.
