Shashvat Nakrani was 19 when he co-founded BharatPe. Now, a decade of drama, a billionaire ranking, and one of India’s most public founder fallouts later, he is stepping back — and gearing up to build all over again.
BharatPe’s current valuation stands at $2.7 billion, making it a unicorn. The company has raised a total of $584 million across 18 funding rounds, with its most recent funding being a $10 million conventional debt round in March 2026.
Nakrani Moves to Strategic Advisor Role From May 1
In a LinkedIn post, Shashvat Nakrani announced he will transition out of day-to-day operations at BharatPe from 1 May, moving into a strategic advisor role whilst continuing to serve as a board director.
The shift, Shashvat Nakrani was careful to clarify, is not a departure.
Nakrani confirmed he will remain actively involved in several of the company’s most consequential decisions – including fundraising, IPO planning, mergers and acquisitions, and long-term strategy.
Shashvat Nakrani also noted that he remains BharatPe’s largest individual shareholder.
“Building Has Always Meant Following Curiosity”
In his own words, Shashvat Nakrani framed the decision as a return to instinct rather than a retreat from responsibility. “Building has always meant following curiosity,” he wrote, signalling that the pull towards new ventures- the same restless energy that drove him to co-found a fintech company whilst still a third-year student at IIT Delhi.
Shashvat Nakrani expressed this return to roots openly, drawing a direct line between the teenager who launched BharatPe and the entrepreneur now looking beyond it.
The decision, Nakrani said, came after a period of genuine reflection about what excites him most — a rare admission of interiority from a founder who has spent the better part of his twenties navigating one of India’s most scrutinised startups.
He also expressed confidence in BharatPe’s current leadership and governance, saying the team in place is well-positioned to carry the company forward without his daily presence.
The IITian Who Made History at 23
To understand the weight of Shashvat Nakrani’s announcement, it helps to understand just how young he was when he made his first mark.
In 2021, at just 23 years of age, Shashvat Nakrani became the youngest person to feature in the IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List – an extraordinary distinction that placed him among 13 other self-made billionaires born in the 1990s.
Shashvat Nakrani had co-founded BharatPe at 19, alongside Ashneer Grover, whilst enrolled as a third-year undergraduate student at IIT Delhi.
The fintech company they built together addressed a genuine pain point in India’s rapidly digitising economy. BharatPe offers merchants a single QR code capable of accepting payments across all major apps – including Paytm, PhonePe, Google Pay, BHIM, and more than 150 other UPI-enabled platforms.
The Ashneer Grover Fallout That Shook BharatPe
In December 2022, a day after BharatPe accused its ousted managing director Ashneer Grover and members of his family of embezzling company funds for personal expenses, Grover took to Twitter with a pointed counter-narrative- one that placed Nakrani squarely in his sights.
In a post that spread rapidly across social media, Ashneer Grover wrote: “Doglapan: Shashvat (Co-Founder) to 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. Shashvat to Board: No objection in filing case against Ashneer.”
The allegation- that Nakrani had quietly taken a year away from the office to complete his IIT degree whilst asking Grover not to inform investors, cut to the heart of what Ashneer Grover was calling the fintech company’s culture of duplicity. Nakrani did not respond publicly to the claim at the time.
The broader dispute between Grover and BharatPe had by that point escalated well beyond Twitter. The company filed for arbitration under Singapore International Arbitration Centre rules, seeking to claw back Grover’s restricted shareholding and his right to use the founder title. Grover held approximately 8.5 per cent of the company, of which 1.4 per cent remained unvested and therefore vulnerable to forfeiture.
BharatPe also pursued civil damages, filing a suit worth approximately ₹88 crores against Grover, his wife Madhuri Jain Grover, and other family members. The Delhi High Court issued a summons in December 2022, with charges encompassing the creation of fictitious vendors, fabricated invoices, criminal breach of trust, forgery, and embezzlement. If convicted on the most serious charges, Grover faced the prospect of a ten-year custodial sentence.
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