BharatPe founder Ashneer Grover says viral audio clip with abuse is 'fake, to extort funds'

BharatPe founder Ashneer Grover is one of the investor panellists on the Indian adaptation of “Shark Tank”.

BharatPe founder Ashneer Grover on Thursday said that a viral audio clip which claims to be of him verbally abusing a Kotak Mahindra bank employee for not getting share allotment in beauty brand Nykaa’s initial public offering (IPO) is “fake” and that it was a “scamster” who put it out.

“Folks. Chill. It’s a fake audio by some scamster trying to extort funds (US$ 240K in bitcoins). I refused to buckle. I’ve got more character. And Internet has got enough scamsters,” Grover tweeted.

Ashneer Grover also shared screenshots of his e-mail exchange from last month with “Unicon Baba” who sought $240,000 in exchange of marketing and promotion for BharatPe.

Folks. Chill ! It’s a FAKE audio by some scamster trying to extort funds (US$ 240K in bitcoins). I refused to buckle. I’ve got more character. And Internet has got enough scamsters :) pic.twitter.com/pCkdPLwBaq

— Ashneer Grover (@Ashneer_Grover) January 6, 2022

The unverified clip, tweeted on Wednesday morning by an account named “@BabuBongo”, has a SoundCloud link with an audio clip.
“How rich founders treat poor bank employees,” the account claimed.

The clip, which is about 4:29 minutes, has an exchange between three people: two male voices and a female voice.

It begins with a male voice asking, “Hi sir, how’re you?”

An angry male voice on the other end of the alleged phone conversation starts throwing verbal abuses in Hindi.

“Are you drunk, sir?” the other male voice asks.

“Are you dumb?” the angry voice responds.

“No, I’m not dumb. But please sir, mind your language. I had a very beautiful relationship with you and I don’t want to spoil it,” says the male voice who initiated the conversation.

A female voice interrupts him, saying, “This is Madhuri this side… why are you talking like that? If you did not have allocation, then why did you commit?”

Moneycontrol cannot verify the authenticity of the audio clip.

Grover is one of the investor panellists on the Indian adaptation of the global business reality show “Shark Tank” that is streaming on SonyLIV.

Grover’s fintech company BharatPe, that he co-founded in 2018, became a unicorn earlier this year. In November 2020, he criticised Paytm chief Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s decision to “misprice” the fintech firm's public offering, adding that a lukewarm response to the listing ends the frenzied cycle of IPOs in India.