BharatPe to offer equity to merchants; pool target $1 billion till IPO

Ashneer Grover

Fintech firm BharatPe is launching a shareholding program for its merchant partners with a total pool of $1 billion by the time the company goes public.

While it has not disclosed the timeline for its initial public listing (IPO) ambition, it looks there's no plan for the same at least for the next four years till when it has announced an equity pool of $100 million.
This is the first such program being designed with the objective of providing an opportunity to the company’s millions of offline merchant partners to become part equity owners of BharatPe.

It will be rolling out this program to its 7.5 million existing merchant partners and extend this to new merchants who join the company in the future.

This is not for the first time BharatPe is trying to disrupt the market with an unconventional approach.

In July also it created a stir by offering BMW superbikes and Apple iPads and Dubai workation to tech talent who joined BharatPe.

While offline retailers are a key contributor to the growth of numerous fintech companies, including global behemoths, there is no existing program that empowers their partners to create wealth for themselves, as the fintech company grows. The company claims this program is designed to address this gap.

“At BharatPe, we like to keep our ears close to the ground. While we as startup community celebrate the coming of age with multi billion dollar IPOs, there is resentment brewing elsewhere. Millions of consumers and merchants are feeling left out of the startup value creation in India. The folks who contribute to revenue of startups and therefore the valuation don't get any equity upside or even allocation in IPOs. We will change it at BharatPe by making our merchants part equity owners and giving them the IPO upside through first of its kind program in the world," said Ashneer Grover, Co-Founder and Managing Director, BharatPe.

The company which became a unicorn earlier this year, last raised Rs 100 crore in debt from homegrown nonbanking financial services firm MAS Financial Services Pvt Ltd