Exclusive: BharatPe CPO Ankur Jain quits to start his own venture

Ankur Jain, the chief product officer of fintech company BharatPe, has decided to hang up his boots after serving more than three years at the Peak XV Partners-backed unicorn, sources aware of the development told Entrackr.

The former Walmart Labs executive was appointed as CPO of BharatPe in June 2020 and was responsible for the complete product life cycle and innovation at the company.

“Jain has decided to move out after 3.5 years of tenure to start his own startup in AI and ML space,” said a source. “He is currently serving notice period and the announcement may come later this month.”

Confirming the development to Entrackr, a BharatPe spokesperson said, "We would like to confirm that Ankur Jain has decided to move on from BharatPe to pursue his entrepreneurial ambitions. He has been an integral part of the company's journey over the last 3.5 years and has built and led a super talented team that brought to life disruptive fintech products for merchants and consumers..."

"..We are in the process of looking for a seasoned Product leader to take over this role and will be making a formal announcement on the same soon," the spokesperson added.

After leaving Walmart, Jain also co-founded travel tech startup Instalocate, an AI startup trying to improve people’s travel experiences.

His exit follows a series of high profile exits at BharatPe in the past couple of years. Last month, the company’s chief business officer Nishant Jain quit and joined stock broking firm Angel One. A month before, senior executive Dhruv Dhanraj Bahl also stepped down from the post of BharatPe's chief business officer of merchant lending after serving four years at the firm.

Bahl also moved on from BharatPe to pursue his entrepreneurial journey.

Jain and Bahl will join a bunch of former BharatPe executives who have started their new entrepreneurial journey after exiting the firm. Rajat Jain, Geetanshu Singla and Nehul Malhotra, the former executives of the company, recently raised money for their new startup Genwise.  Third Unicorn, a new venture floated by former BharatPe co-founder and MD Ashneer Grover and his wife Madhuri Jain, launched fantasy sports platform CrickPe. Meanwhile, Bhavik Koladiya, another co-founder of the company, has joined SaaS startup OTPless as CEO. Suhail Sameer, who served as CEO of BharatPe, is reportedly planning to launch his own venture capital firm.

Amidst these exits, BharatPe has also announced key hirings in 2023. In July, it appointed Pankaj Goel as its chief technical officer (CTO). The company filled the position of CTO after a gap of seven months whereas its CFO Nalin Negi has been acting as an interim CEO since January. As per sources, the firm is likely to designate a new CEO soon.

While BharatPe is yet to disclose its FY23 numbers, its revenue from operations grew 3.8X to Rs 456.8 crore in FY22 with 3X jump in losses to Rs 828.8 crore.