Damnatio memoriae: Ashneer Grover's name scrubbed from BharatPe and Unity Small Finance Bank websites

Ashneer Grover, co-founder of BharatPe.

Less than 48 hours after Ashneer Grover resigned as its managing director, payments and lending fintech BharatPe, has erased his name from the company's website.

Grover no longer features as a founder on the page that details the company's team and founders. Co-founder Shashvat Nakrani and Chief Executive Officer Suhail Sameer will now be the face of the company.

Meanwhile, Grover’s LinkedIn page continues to refer to him as a co-founder and the Managing Director of BharatPe.

Additionally, Unity Small Finance Bank, a joint venture between BharatPe and the Centrum Group, has also taken Grover's name down from pages that profile team members and founders.

Seen as a big win for the Indian fintech ecosystem, Unity Small Finance Bank took over the beleaguered Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank after the Reserve Bank of India granted the JV in-principle clearance in June 2021, followed by a final license in October 2021.

'Grovers guilty of misappropriating company funds'

The removal of Grover's name comes a day after BharatPe’s board hit back at his allegations against board members and the company. In a statement, BharatPe stated that Grover and his wife have been found guilty of misappropriating company funds.

The statement said that, as a result of his misdeeds, Grover is no longer an employee, a founder, or a director of BharatPe, adding that the company reserves the right to take legal action.

In a dramatic late-night move on March 1, Grover resigned from the company he had co-founded in 2018, allegedly after receiving a mail that notified him of a board meet, where action was to be taken against him.

Bitter outburst

In a conversation with Moneycontrol following his resignation, Grover called the governance review process against his wife Madhuri Jain Grover and himself a ‘sham’ and launched a fusillade of angry comments against the board and chairman Rajnish Kumar, accusing them of failing to keep details of their actions confidential.

In his letter, he has also pointed fingers at investors, blaming them for treating founders as slaves. "You treat us Founders as slaves — pushing us to build multi-billion-dollar businesses and cutting us down at will. Investor-Founder relation in India is one of Master-Slave. I am the rebel slave who must be hung by the tree so none of the other slaves can dare to be like me ever again," the letter read.

In response, BharatPe’s board said in its statement: "The company has taken strong objection to Mr Grover spinning lies and hurling baseless allegations and threats.”