BharatPe’s co-founder and MD Ashneer Grover is one of the heavy weight names in India’s startup industry. For scores of budding entrepreneurs , in fact, Grover is an inspiration and a poster boy of India’s burgeoning startup industry. BharatPe MD’s reputation of him being a poster boy was further consolidated with Grover regularly appearing as a judge in the popular business reality show Shark Tank India.
However, Grover’s reputation has come under attack since Wednesday evening after anonymous Twitter handle ‘Bongo Babu’ uploaded a SoundCloud link that is supposedly a phone conversation between Grover and Kotak Mahindra employee. In this explosive audio, Grover is allegedly heard using abusive languages and even giving a dire threat to encounter the concerned employee. Grover’s wife also allegedly took part in this phone conversation.
The audio leak suggest that BharatPe MD and his wife are miffed with Kotak Mahindra employee for missing on share allotment during Nykaa’s high-profile IPO.
To counter the explosive claims made by the audio leak, Grover took to his Twitter handle and dismissed the audio as fake. He further claimed that “some scamster” is trying to exhort funds ($240,0000 in Bitcoins) through this audio clip. Grover also shared the screenshot of an email interaction between him and the concerned employee.
Techpluto has not independently verified the authenticity of the leaked audio call. Interestingly, in his tweet Grover did not demand the forensic examination of the audio call.
BharatPe has officially not commented on this matter. Officials from Shark Tank India have also so far not commented on this matter. That said, this entire fiasco has got tongues swagging on the Twitter platform. Many concluded on their Twitter handle that in their personal and professional lives many high profile startup entrepreneurs are found to be arrogant and exhibiting narcist attitude.
