BharatPe offers work-from-Dubai, BMW Superbike and Apple iPads to lure tech talent

BharatPe co-founder Ashneer Grover

Soonicorn BharatPe, which is in talks to raise a fresh round of funding from Tiger Global, is going all out to shower tech talents with luxury.

The company which offers fin-tech solutions for merchants plans to offer superbikes and Apple iPads among other things to triple its technology team.

"We are hiring 100 folks in our tech team. Joining proposition is simply compelling. Cri(work)cation in Dubai during ICC T20 World Cup for the entire tech team, BMW Superbike, in-vogue gadgets for WFH Life, market-leading salaries and life changing equity," said Ashneer Grover, co-founder and chief executive officer of BharatPe, in his LinkedIn post.

New tech team joinees will have an option to choose between bike package or a gadget package.

The bike package has five superbikes as options – BMW G310R, Jawa Parek, KTM Duke 390, KTM RC 390 and Royal Enfield Himalayan.

The gadget package includes -  Apple iPad Pro (with Pencil), Bose Headphone, Harman Kardon Speaker, Samsung Galaxy Watch, WFH desk and chair, and Firefox Typhoon 27.5 D bicycle.

The company, which is expected to launch a slew of products in the merchant and consumer lending space, also plans to host its entire technology team in Dubai for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup from October 17 to November 14, 2021.

The appraisal for the existing team has also been preponed by eight months. It claims to have offered its tech employees 75% increments split between CTC  (cost to company) and incremental ESOPs, effective July 1.

Interestingly, the bike and gadget package is also available to anyone referring tech talent to the company and has been extended to the whole team as well as alumni of BharatPe.

"As we build the next generation of banking in India, we want to invite and excite the best tech talent to work with us on building market leading products at scale. We will, therefore, be taking the lead in tech talent compensation in India because that’s the only real investment our business needs given the capital efficiency of our model," Ashneer Grover, co-founder and CEO, BharatPe said in a statement.

BharatPe's last institutional round of funding happened in February which valued the company at $900 million. It was a $108 million round which constituted $90 million of primary and $18 million of secondary fundraising. The round was led by the company's existing investor Coatue Management. All seven existing institutional investors Ribbit Capital, Insight Partners, Steadview Capital, Beenext, Amplo and Sequoia Capital participated in the round.

Recently it raised around $7 million in debt funding as well. Overall the company has raised close to $300 million in equity and debt so far.

BharatPe's generous incentives initiatives comes at a time when the entire  startups industry is going out of its way to attract tech minds. Issues related to hiring and human resource management in the technology sector have been generating quite a lot of buzz of late on social media.

A recent article in Moneycontrol had highlighted the case of a 32-year-old tech professional in India bagging a Rs 2-crore pay cheque, the equivalent of a typical Silicon Valley Startup salary.