Digital payments firm BharatPe ropes in former IKEA exec as marketing chief

Digital payments firm BharatPe, which services offline retailers and businesses, has appointed former IKEA executive Abhishek Shah as its new chief marketing officer (CMO).

BharatPe had recently onboarded actor Salman Khan as its brand ambassador.

“In the past few months, we have onboarded over 800,000 merchants, and we are aiming to enable over 10 million merchants over the next two years,” said Ashneer Grover, co-founder and chief executive of BharatPe.

By his LinkedIn account, Shah took charge of his new responsibility since May.

Abhishek Shah

An MBA degree holder from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Shah had headed the marketing campaign for the recent season of cricket tournament Indian Premier League (IPL).

Prior to that, he was heading the digital marketing, brand and media initiatives for the India operations of Swedish furniture retailing giant IKEA.

In his earlier stints, he has held senior digital marketing vertical positions at Tata group and e-tailer ShopClues.

Bharat Pe

BharatPe recently raised $15.5 million (around Rs 107 crore) in a Series A round of funding from Insight Partners, Sequoia Capital and Beenext.

Online publication Entrackr said BharatPe is looking to raise at least $75 million in a Series B round from Insight Partners and other existing investors, besides a couple of America-headquartered hedge funds.

BharatPe was founded in April last year by Grover and Shashvat Nakrani. Prior to setting up BharatPe, Grover led new business at PC Jeweller and was the chief financial officer at online grocer Grofers, while Nakrani is an engineering graduate from IIT-Delhi, their LinkedIn profiles show.

BharatPe competes with wallet firm Paytm, Flipkart-owned PhonePe, Google Pay and others.