ShareChat expands its ESOP pool to $35 Mn

Vernacular language social media platform ShareChat has expanded its ESOP pool by $14 million in an effort to recognize the hard-working employees behind the growth of both ShareChat and its short video platform, Moj. With the fresh addition, the company’s total ESOP pool now stands at $35 million. 

The Bengaluru-based company has extended the stock options to every employee on the payroll including administrative staff who were not holding any ESOP earlier. The new ESOPs would be applicable for all the existing employees who were on the company’s payroll on June 30, 2020. 

ShareChat has also announced 50% additional ESOPs as a bonus for the existing employees holding stock options in the company. Presently, ShareChat employs over 400 people.

“The additional ESOP is a measure of small appreciation for this commitment and a recognition of our team’s efforts. The new pool will keep us well placed for rewarding our teams in the future as well,” said Ankush Sachdeva, co-founder of ShareChat in a press statement. 

The company has been in full action in 2020. It launched a fantasy sports platform Jeet11 in February, entered short video space with a new app called Moj and made four acquisitions -- Elanic, Memer, Circle Internet and HPF Films.

Short video app Moj got momentum after the ban of TikTok in India. It surpassed 50 million downloads within 45 days of launch. Now, it claims to have garnered over 80 million monthly active users or MAUs. Meanwhile, the company’s fantasy sports focused product Jeet11 seems not to be working well. While the IPL season has already kicked-off, still it's not visible as other platforms in the space.

Over the past couple of years, the Indian startup ecosystem has been emphasising on creating and expanding the ESOPs pool. Significantly, large scale companies such as Paytm, Oyo, MyGate, Zerodha, Meesho, and Unacademy among several others also allowed employees to sell their partial ESOPs holdings.