This presentation made by the students of IIIT Naya Raipur for a case competition details the entrepreneurial journey of the unicorn startup, BharatPe, and the challenges it ensued during the Covid-19 Pandemic.

2. Founding Team
Ashneer Grover is the CEO and the founder of BharatPe. He’s an alumnus of IIT
Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad. He was previously the Head of New Business at PCJ
and built Grofers business out as CFO
Shashvat Nakrani is the co-founder of BharatPe. He is an IITD dropout.

3. Problems and Inefficiencies Found.
Customer focussed
companies like Paytm
and PhonePe wanted
transactions to
happen within their
own ecosystem.
Context
BharatPe wanted to
make things easy by
adopting a merchant-
centric approach. It
aimed to achieve this
with a standardized
interoperable QR
code.
Line of Action
Merchants had to
keep QR codes of
multiple companies to
accept payments from
different UPI apps.
Also, they had to give
a commission of at
least a 1.5% of the
payments they
received.
Problems

4. BharatPe wasn’t
charging their
merchants at all for
universal QR Code
access, which lured
many merchants and
resulted in huge user
base for BharatPe.
BharatPe ever since its
inception focused on
Retail Business
Transactions and being
the king in that niche
rather than pawn in the
P2P segment.
The Company clearly
expressed their
priority i.e the
merchants.
1.5M Merchants
Using BharatPe Just 7 Months after
the launch, BharatPe
had a huge customer
audience. They finally
found their Product-
Market Fit.
BharatPe have
currently a payment
Volume of more
Rs28,000 Crores. It
still has a long way to
go. It will be
interesting to see its
future traction.
August, 2019
0-Fee
payment
$14M loan to
20,0000
Merchants
Finding the
pot of gold in
P2M
A legend
has been
born
Product Market Fit

5. Marketing Strategies
Feet on Street
BharatPe had to scale and
reach a customer which is
largely offline. In a
country where merchants
do not believe in DIY
concepts, it had to build a
large FoS (Feet on Street)
presence.
Incentive based
Strategy
For the long term game that
BharatPe wanted to play,
paying Rs. 20-30K a month
to field agents , on basis of
the number of merchants
onboarded, turned out to be
a game changer.
Breaking the
normal
Their Message
saying”Dukandar to be
the King” was the point
which turned the things
around for BharatPe.
Cricketers as Brand
Ambassadors
In 2021, the cricketers Rohit
Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah,
KL Rahul, Mohammed
Shami, Ravindra Jadeja,
Suresh Raina and,
Yuzvendra Chahal were
signed as BharatPe brand
ambassador.

6. Funding History and Company Growth
2018
1 October,
2018.
Raised $2M
Seed
Funding from
BEENEXT
and Sequoia
Capital India.
2019
4 June.
Raised $50M
Series C
Funding..
2020
August. Made
the UI very
clean and
simple. The
download
went up by
62%.
2021
300,000/Day
Transactions.
10M/month
Annual Run
rate
2021
4 August
BharatPe
becomes a
unicorn.

7. BharatSwipe, a zero rental Swipe
machine. BharatPe levies no
transaction fees on payments.
Xtraincome card for merchants. This
card gives a flat 1% cashback on all
transactions.
BharatPe knows your revenue through POS and QR code products.
Xtraincome card would help them understand your expenditure patterns.
Basis the data available, BharatPe offers a collateral free loan to the
merchant.

8. Payback India
A multi-brand loyalty programme with over 100
million members in the country. It has a network of
more than 100 offline and online partners and
allows its customers to earn and redeem points on
every transaction at its partner merchant outlets.
Mergers and Acquisitions
PMC Bank
I
Set up a small finance bank with Centrum
Finance, a NBFC, in what is a landmark
step for fintech in India

10. Impact of COVID 19
April 2020
Contrary to other
businesses, the
pandemic
provided strong
tailwinds to the
digital payment
sectors.
1.2M/Day
Total monthly
Transactions
spring back during
the initial
Outbreak of
COVID.
Hitting $479M
transaction
value.
By November
2020 itself, the
platform was
having 61.5
Million Monthly
Transaction.
Target to
Grow Loan
Book to
5000 Crores
As a part of their
future aggressive
strategy and
countering
problems like
COVID, they are
targeting to grow
loan books to
5000 Crores in
Next Two years.
3rd Largest
BharatPe has
replaced
GooglePay to
become 3rd
Largest P2M
payment app.