‘Folks…. Chill’: BharatPe co-founder Ashneer Grover dismisses ‘verbal abuse’ audio clip as fake

BharatPe co-founder Ashneer Grover on Thursday said a viral audio clip claiming to be of him verbally abusing a bank employee for not getting share allotment in Nykaa’s initial public offering (IPO) is “fake” and is an attempt for extorting money.

A tweet on Wednesday morning by an account named ‘@BabuBongo’ said ‘how rich founders treat poor bank employees’ and included an audio clip. The clip, which is about 4:29 minutes, includes an exchange between three people: two male and a female voice.

Grover, on Thursday, tweeted: “Folks. Chill. It’s a fake audio by some scamster trying to extort funds (USD 240,000 bitcoins). I refused to buckle. I’ve got more character. And, internet has got enough scamsters.”

He also shared screenshots of his e-mail exchange from last month with ‘Unicon Baba’ who sought USD 240,000 in Bitcoins for “managing perception”. Grover and Shashvat Nakrani had co-founded BharatPe in 2018.

BharatPe serves over 75 lakh merchants across 150 cities. The company has already facilitated the disbursement of loans totalling over Rs 3,000 crore to its merchants since its launch. BharatPe has raised over USD 650 million in equity and debt, till date. Its investors include Tiger Global, Dragoneer Investment Group, Steadfast Capital, Coatue Management, Ribbit Capital and others.