BharatPe appoints ‘Sumeet Singh’ as General Counsel & Head- Corporate Strategy

Sumeet was one of the youngest partners at Shardul Amarchand (SAM)

Kolkata,  January 05, 2021: BharatPe, India’s leading financial services company for merchants, today announced the appointment of ‘Sumeet Singh’ as the ‘General Counsel and Head- Corporate Strategy’. The appointment will further bolster the leadership team at BharatPe, which currently is a mix of renowned professionals across industries.

Sumeet Singh is a seasoned legal professional with 10+ years of experience across leading law firms including AZB & Partners, DSK Legal and Amarchand Mangaldas. Sumeet brings deep understanding of legal, compliance, regulatory and structuring aspects of multiple sectors including non-banking financial, retail, e-commerce, FMCG, digital media and technology.

Sumeet who is expected to join BharatPe soon is currently a Partner at Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas, New Delhi, having joined the erstwhile Amarchand Mangaldas Suresh A. Shroff in 2013 from AZB. Sumeet has actively represented some of India’s biggest e-commerce, retail entities, financial companies and start-ups. Recently, he was part of the core team advising Reliance Retail Ventures Limited, in its acquisition of the entire retail & wholesale and logistics & warehousing business of Kishore Biyani's Future Group. He has also been advising Norwest Venture Partners (a US$ 9 billion investment fund) in all their recent investments in India including in Xpressbess, OFB Tech, Ess Kay Fin Corp, Veritas Finance etc. He has been an advisor to Grofers since its early days leading their fund raising work. Additionally, Sumeet represented Indiamart on its pre-IPO fund raising. Sumeet’s other marquee representations include clients like Nestle, IFC, Inshorts, IDFC Alternatives Limited (now Global Infrastructure Partners), Qatar based Q Invest, Raine Group and NewsCorp. 

Commenting on the appointment of Sumeet, Ashneer Grover, Co-Founder and CEO, BharatPe said, “2020 has been an exciting and solid growth year for BharatPe. As we get ready to welcome 2021, I would like to welcome Sumeet to the team. Sumeet will be the first partner at a major law firm to join a startup. I’ve known Sumeet professionally and personally for 5 years and there is no one better to steer BharatPe on its goal to be India’s first true digital bank. He will be responsible for corporate strategy, compliance, licensing, equity and debt deals, ESOP schemes, cap table management and preparation for eventual listing.”

Sumeet added “I am excited to join Ashneer and his solid team of CXOs as they build out a truly differentiated and capital efficient Fintech at BharatPe. The way BharatPe has broken away from the Fintech crowd to create a solid business, bodes well for the future and I am honoured to contribute to this amazing growth.”

About BharatPe

BharatPe was co-founded by Ashneer Grover and Shashvat Nakrani in 2018 with the vision to make financial inclusion a reality for Indian merchants. BharatPe launched India’s first UPI interoperable QR code, first ZERO MDR payment acceptance service, and first UPI payment backed merchant cash advance service. In 2020, post-Covid, BharatPe also launched India’s only ZERO MDR card acceptance terminals – BharatSwipe. Currently serving over 50 lakh merchants across 50+ cities, the company has grown business 30x in 2019 and is a leader in UPI offline transactions, having processed 5 crore+ UPI transactions a month (annualized TPV of US$ 7+ Bn). The company has already facilitated disbursement of over Rs. 500 crores to its merchants since launch. BharatPe’s POS business grew to US$ 2bn annualized transaction value in just 3 months post the launch. BharatPe has raised US$ 142.5 million till date. The company’s list of marquee investors includes Beenext, Sequoia, SteadView Capital, Ribbit Capital, Coatue Management LLC, Insight Partners, and Amplo.