Vishal Gupta has stepped down as CEO of PhonePe Insurance Broking Services to launch a new startup being built in stealth.

Gupta announced his departure in a LinkedIn post, saying the move was the “natural next step” after years of working across startups including Pine Labs, Flipkart and PhonePe.

He said he was returning to “building from scratch, solving hard problems, finding PMF, and earning the right to scale”.

Gupta joined PhonePe in 2016 as vice-president, leading product, UX/UI, risk and customer experience. He was appointed CEO of the company’s insurance business in November 2023.

His exit is the latest senior leadership change at the Walmart-backed fintech firm. In May, Ujjwal Jain stepped down as CEO of PhonePe’s stockbroking platform Share.Market and its wealth management vertical after nearly four years. In June, Akash Dongre, co-founder and chief product officer of PhonePe-owned Indus Appstore, also left the company.

PhonePe received an insurance broking licence from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDA) in August 2021, allowing it to distribute insurance products from insurers across India. The company had earlier entered the insurtech sector with a limited corporate-agent licence.

The Bengaluru-based company has expanded beyond digital payments into insurance, lending and wealth management, while also building consumer technology businesses such as Share.Market and Indus Appstore.

PhonePe said in April 2026 that it had crossed 700 million life-to-date registered users.

The company filed its updated draft red herring prospectus with the SEBI in January 2026 for a proposed IPO. The IPO is structured as an offer for sale, with existing shareholders set to sell up to 50.7 million shares and no fresh shares to be issued by PhonePe.

PhonePe later paused its IPO plans, citing geopolitical tensions and volatility in global capital markets. Reuters reported that Walmart planned to trim its stake, while Tiger Global and Microsoft were set to exit through the offering.