RNFirebase core module was not found natively on iOS

Question

AppDelegate.m

#import "Firebase.h"
#import "AppDelegate.h"

#import <React/RCTBundleURLProvider.h>
#import <React/RCTRootView.h>

@implementation AppDelegate

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions
{
  [FIRApp configure];
  NSURL *jsCodeLocation;

  jsCodeLocation = [[RCTBundleURLProvider sharedSettings] jsBundleURLForBundleRoot:@"index" fallbackResource:nil];

  RCTRootView *rootView = [[RCTRootView alloc] initWithBundleURL:jsCodeLocation
                                                      moduleName:@"kakashi"
                                               initialProperties:nil
                                                   launchOptions:launchOptions];
  rootView.backgroundColor = [[UIColor alloc] initWithRed:1.0f green:1.0f blue:1.0f alpha:1];

  self.window = [[UIWindow alloc] initWithFrame:[UIScreen mainScreen].bounds];
  UIViewController *rootViewController = [UIViewController new];
  rootViewController.view = rootView;
  self.window.rootViewController = rootViewController;
  [self.window makeKeyAndVisible];
  return YES;
}

@end

Podfile:

# Uncomment the next line to define a global platform for your project
platform :ios, '9.0'

target 'my_app' do
  pod 'Firebase/Core'

end

Verified that Build phase/Link Binary with Libraries has libRNFirebase.a

I've also verified the $(inherited) is there for framework search paths.

Still getting error RNFirebase core module was not found natively on iOS with expo start or npm start

Can you please recommend how to approach this problem? Or any help with what to verify/ensure for this to work is much appreciated.