Vikas Purohit heads out of Paytm, to set up own start-up

Purohit was looking after the branch and business correspondent network for Paytm's upcoming payments bank

In yet another high profile exit, Vikas Purohit, senior vice-president at India's largest mobile wallet service, Paytm, has resigned.

Purohit was also looking after the branch and business correspondent network for Paytm's upcoming payments bank. 

He would now be launching his own start-up, Purohit confirmed. Another Paytm employee, Apoorv Gautam, would be joining as a co-founder in the new start-up. Purohit said Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma would act as a mentor to his new company. Asked if Sharma or Paytm were funding his new project, Purohit said at present the former was only acting as a mentor. Paytm refused to comment.

"I had been thinking of a new start-up for a while and had also discussed it with Vijay. He even gave me the option of starting the venture in-house but I thought it would be better if we did it on our own. He is, however, going to be mentor to the company," Purohit said.

He'd joined Paytm in December 2015, prior to which he'd handled the fashion and lifestyle business at Amazon India. He has also done stints with the Tommy Hilfiger and Reliance brands.

While Purohit did not disclose much about his new start-up, he said it would bridge the gap between offline and online mediums. "The start-up would work on enhancing the digital customer experience. This is the right time to set it up. The company would be based out of the National Capital Region," he added. In all the company would have three co-founders; the third name he would not divulge.

This is not the first time Sharma has mentored at a company. SHEROES.in, founded by Sairee Chahal, that curates work from home jobs in India, was mentored by him. "He is an early seed investor in the company. Paytm's support has always been there, right from information technology infrastructure to running day to day activities," Chahal said.

Purohit, however, is not alone in having left to start a new venture. 

In May, Anand Chandrasekaran, chief product officer at online marketplace giant Snapdeal, quit the company less than a year of joining it. Chandrasekaran was technically the third in command at the online marketplace. Snapdeal co-founder Rohit Bansal confirmed the news on micro blogging platform Twitter.

According to sources, Chandrasekaran might start a new venture and is on the verge of setting up a team to do that. Online marketplace giant Flipkart has also in the past few months had a number of high-powered exits — Myntra cofounder Mukesh Bansal, chief product officer Punit Soni and chief business officer Ankit Nagori.