BharatPe CTO among multiple executives who left firm

Three senior executives have resigned from BharatPe, two people aware of the matter told Mint. Vijay Aggarwal, chief technology officer; Nehul Malhotra, head, PostPe; and Rajat Jain, chief product officer for lending and consumer products, have put in their papers.

Aggarwal, who has been with BharatPe since March 2020, has quit “to start his own venture,” the people quoted above said. Former Paytm executives Jain and Malhotra are “also moving out to pursue their own entrepreneurial journey,” the persons added.

Some two to three exits have happened at mid-managerial level too, including those of Geetanshu Singla, VP-technology, and Manas Poddar, who was programme manager at BharatPe.

Since the start of year 2022, BharatPe has been mired with controversies and top-level exits. First it was Grover, who was ousted over allegations of financial irregularities.  

In June, the company’s chief revenue officer Nishit Sharma was let go. The same month, BharatPe’s founding member Satyam Nathani, who was one of the most important members of the tech team, also resigned to pursue his entrepreneurial ambitions.

The biggest setback was the exit of Bhavik Koladiya, the person ran the tech and product of the fintech giant, who ended his association with the company in the last week of June. Koladiya, who is just a  high-school graduate, has been running BharatPe’s tech from the start. He led a 60-member tech and product team. Apart from managing BharatPe’s tech, an agreement was put in place where Koladiya would have offered tech consulting to the Unity Small Finance Bank – a joint venture between Centrum and BharatPe.  

Over last few months, most exits have happened from BharatPe’s tech and product team, which is also expected to have an impact on the Unity Bank which in turn is dependent on BharatPe for its technology expertise.

In fact, Koladiya, Nathani and Vijay Aggarwal were set to play an important role in Unity SFB, for which BharatPe is expected to contribute as a technology service provider.

These exits come at a time when the fintech company is transitioning itself into a professionally-run entity. BharatPe, which is currently focused on achieving profitability, is also preparing for an IPO in 18-24 months.

BharatPe was started in July 2017 and was incorporated in March 2018 by Koladiya and Shashvat Nakrani, who was then studying at IIT-Delhi, as co-founders with each owning 50% stake. Three months later in June 2018, Grover joined as the third co-founder. In August 2021, the company entered the unicorn club after raising $370 million led by Tiger Global. Former SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar was appointed as chairman at BharatPe in October 2021.

BharatPe is yet to respond to a Mint query on this.