BharatPe co-founder, Shashvat Nakrani steps back to build something new
Shashvat Nakrani was 19 years old when he founded BharatPe. Now, after a decade of drama, a billionaire rank and one of India’s best-known founders, he is stepping back and preparing to rebuild it all.
BharatPe’s current valuation stands at $2.7 billion, making it a unicorn. The company raised a total of $584 million across 18 financing rounds; its most recent financing was a $10 million conventional debt round in March 2026.
Nakrani Shifts to Strategic Advisor Role as of May 1
Shashvat Nakrani announced in his LinkedIn post that he will step down from day-to-day operations at BharatPe effective May 1 and move into a strategic advisor role while continuing his role as a board member.
Shashvat Nakrani was careful to clarify that this change was not a departure.
Nakrani confirmed that he will continue to be actively involved in many of the company’s most important decisions, including fundraising, IPO planning, mergers and acquisitions and long-term strategy.
Shashvat Nakrani also stated that he remains the largest individual shareholder of BharatPe.
“Building Has Always Meant Pursuing Curiosity”
Shashvat Nakrani, in his own words, framed the decision as a return to instinct rather than a turning away from responsibility.
“Building has always meant pursuing curiosity,” he wrote, signaling interest in new ventures; This was the same restless energy that drove him to start a fintech company when he was just a third-year student at IIT Delhi.
Shashvat Nakrani clearly articulated this return to roots, drawing a direct line between the young man who founded BharatPe and the entrepreneur who is now looking beyond it.
Nakrani said the decision came after a frank reflection on what excited him most: a rare confession of introspection from a founder who spent much of his twenties navigating one of India’s most scrutinized startups.
He also expressed confidence in the current leadership and management of BharatPe, saying the current team is well positioned to take the company forward without his day-to-day presence.
An IIT student who made history at the age of 23
To understand the weight of Shashvat Nakrani’s announcement, it helps to understand how young he was when he made his first sign.
In 2021, at the age of just 23, Shashvat Nakrani became the youngest person to feature on the IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List; this was an extraordinary distinction that placed him among 13 other billionaires born in the 1990s.
Shashvat Nakrani co-founded BharatPe along with Ashneer Grover at the age of 19 and was enrolled as a third-year undergraduate student at IIT Delhi.
The fintech company they founded together addressed a real pain point in India’s rapidly digitalising economy. BharatPe offers merchants a single QR code that can accept payments across all major apps including Paytm, PhonePe, Google Pay, BHIM and 150+ other UPI-enabled platforms.
Ashneer Grover Fallout That Shook BharatPe
In December 2022, a day after BharatPe accused its ousted chief executive Ashneer Grover and his family members of embezzling company funds for personal expenses, Grover followed up with a pointed counter-narrative on Twitter that placed Nakrani squarely in his crosshairs.
In a post that went viral on social media, Ashneer Grover wrote: “Doglapan: Shashvat (Co-Founder) for me. Bhai degree poori karni hai. Ek saal office bunk kar ke IIT poora kar leta hoon. Secondary kara dena aur salary bhi mat rokna – investor ko mat batana. To Shashvat Board: No objection to filing case against Ashneer.”
Nakrani’s allegation that he quietly took a year away from the office to complete his IIT degree while asking Grover not to inform investors broke the heart of what Ashneer Grover called the fintech company’s culture of hypocrisy. Nakrani did not publicly respond to this allegation at the time.
The broader dispute between Grover and BharatPe had gone well beyond Twitter at that point. The company resorted to arbitration under the rules of the Singapore International Arbitration Center to recover Grover’s limited shareholding and the right to use his founder title. Grover held approximately 8.5 percent of the company, of which 1.4 percent was non-vested and therefore vulnerable to forfeiture.
BharatPe also filed a lawsuit seeking damages for around 100,000 euros. ₹88 crore against Grover, his wife Madhuri Jain Grover and other family members. The Delhi High Court issued a summons in December 2022 on charges that include creating fictitious vendors, fabricated invoices, breach of trust, forgery and embezzlement. If convicted of the most serious charges, Grover would face the possibility of a ten-year prison sentence.
