Unacademy to buy back 30% of employees' vested ESOPs

Rivigo’s ESOP encashment in August last year kicked off similar events in several other startups as well. Razorpay, UrbanClap, and Droom rewarded their ESOP holders with hefty money via buybacks and secondary deals in October to December 2018 period while CarDekho carried on the trend in 2019.

Now, Unacademy has joined the wagon with an ESOP buyback in their offices. Gaurav Munjal, co-founder and CEO of Unacademy, disclosed that the event is in the process by tweeting a screenshot of the announcement made to the employees on Slack.

As per the screenshot, the company has told the employees that it will be buying back shares from the employees whose stocks are vested. To be specific, only 30% of the vested stocks will be encashed.

Nothing about the number of employees eligible for the event, the eligibility criteria, the magnitude of gains they are slated to make, or that total worth of ESOPs to be encashed was disclosed in the article. Just that the transaction will be beneficial for everyone, especially long employees who have served longer terms.

The ESOP encashment comes at a time when the company is in the middle of raising a $55 million Series D round led by Steadview Capital where existing investors Sequoia Capital and SAIF Partners are also slated to contribute. The process, in this case, should be a part of the secondary deal where the shares bought back are then sold to the investors in the new round.

Munjal also expressed his gratitude towards those members who have stuck with the company in its ups and downs and dedicates the gesture to these people who believed in Unacademy since the beginning. He also said that nothing is better than rewarding such team members.

This a positive development for people working at the firm, as well as the industry as a whole as it is bound to set another example for the startups that are yet to reward their employees via ESOPs.