Fables of ESOP | BrowserStack & Unacademy add $60m+ in Employee Wealth | ClassPlus launches ReSOPs
I hope you are doing well and double vaccinated.
In the ESOP world, September could count as almost quiet until the Browser announcement came about yesterday — A massive $50 million buyback program for about 100 employees. This further added to the flurry of ESOP liquidity announcements 2021 has seen this year — i.e. over $300 million. Let’s do our usual roundup.
By the way, if you are a founder looking to setup you first ESOP plan, I wrote an article yesterday which is a curation of good practices that other seasoned founders from the ecosystem have employed. Do give it a read and tell me if you found it useful.
ESOP Buyback Roundup — September 2021 ($60+ Million worth Buybacks)
September witnessed buybacks from 4 startups which added upto $62 million worth ESOPs being bought-back generating employee wealth. These include a massive buyback program by Browser Stack and programs announced by Unacademy, ClassPlus and Vahdam Teas.
BrowserStack buys back $50 million worth ESOPs for about 100 employees!
Browser Stack which raised a massive $200 million round becoming a unicorn in June, announced its second buyback program worth $50 million. That’s about 25% of the capital raised. What can one do, if your company profitable for years and you just got $200 million in your bank account as investor money — run a buyback program! :)
The noteworthy aspect of the programs is the average wealth creation per employee — it’s a massive $500k per employee which is INR 3.5 Crores.
This is assuming about 100 employees which is what the article indicates.
As per Entrackr report, the buyback will be executed at par with the latest round valuation of $4 billion — which is again a trend we are seeing that liquidation events are happening at the prevailing market price instead of a discount.
Unacademy to undertake a $10.5 million buyback program
After T-SOPs, Unacademy is in news again with their $10 million buyback program to buyback ESOPs from current and former employees, including educators too.
This is Unacademy’s third buyback and the largest program in 3 years and employees can liquidate anywhere between 20% to 100% of their vested options based on a specific eligibility criteria.
UnAcademy had announced a $440 million funding round last month at $3.44 billion valuation.
ClassPlus completes a $1 million buyback program and announces a new referral program — ReSOPs
ClassPlus a SaaS platform for educators which raised a $65 million funding from Tiger Global in June, completed a buyback program worth $1 million. The program saw participation of over 30 employees and they could liquidate 100% of their vested options.
Interestingly ClassPlus also announced a referral program where on successful referrals employees will be compensated through stock options instead of cash ⇒ ReSOPs!
Clearly, hiring good talent seems to be the topmost challenge for any founder of a fast-growing startup!
In a way ClassPlus is recycling their ESOPs to ReSOPs. :)
It’s great to see startups creating unique programs to attract good talent to their startups.
Vahdam Teas executes an undisclosed buyback round
Vahdam Teas, a $39 million Series-D Funding executed their second ESOP liquidation as per a post by their founder Bala Sarda’s post on LinkedIn.
It was heartening to read Bala’s post which narrated a message from one of his employee who became debt free thanks to the buyback, who earlier was spending 30% of monthly pay in EMIs. Thinking of this, perhaps there are thousands of such stories from employees who are benefitting from this fresh pool of liquidity available to key operators of startups.
Perhaps these are the real #FablesOfESOP?
And hence more power to these founders who intend to share wealth with their people.
If you have any more of these Fables of ESOP which has transformed lives of your people do share and make our day as well.. :)
Also do you want to script your own #FablesOfESOP, do hit me up. :)
Connect with me: srikanth@qapitacorp.com; LinkedIn; Twitter
