Citrus Pay co-founder Jitendra Gupta steps down as PayU India MD

Jitendra Gupta has stepped down as the managing director (MD) of India operations at online payment company PayU, a subsidiary of South African media and e-commerce group Naspers.

The development comes a little less than three years after PayU acquired for $130 million Mumbai-based Citrus Pay, which Gupta had co-founded. In a tweet, Gupta said that he is likely to start a new venture in the fintech space. “After eight years, an exciting journey comes to its logical end. Really enjoyed building businesses in Citrus & PayU…,” he tweeted.

After 8 years, an exciting journey comes to it's logical end. Really enjoyed building businesses in Citrus & PayU. Grateful to my partner @amrishrau .Moving to the next chapter of life. Ofcourse it will be fintech ;-) DM me for brainstorming fintech ideas. pic.twitter.com/NDS6LmgtJo

— Jitendra Gupta (@guptajiten) July 1, 2019

The development comes eight years after Gupta co-founded Citrus Pay with Satyen Kothari (now founder of Cube Wealth) in 2011. Citrus Pay started off its business in three business verticals—payment processing, enterprise payment SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions and consumer payment services.

In September 2016, Citrus Pay was acquired by Nasper’s PayU, its competitor, in all-cash deal worth $130 million (Rs 865 crore then). It marked one of the largest buyout transactions in the Indian fintech space at that point in time. After the merger, Gupta was handed over the task of spearheading PayU India’s consumer-facing finance operations. He started its personal loan and credit platform LazyPay.

Speculation on Gupta’s exit first emerged in May when a journalist from The Economic Times tweeted in this regard. At that point in time, Gupta denied that he was leaving PayU India. A commerce graduate and a chartered accountant by qualification, Gupta worked at investment banks Autus Capital and Global Investment Banking Group before co-founding Citrus Pay in 2011.