OfBusiness expands its ESOP pool size to $38 Mn

Business-to-business e-commerce platform OfBusiness has expanded its employee stock ownership plan or ESOP by adding fresh options.

The board of OfBusiness has passed a special resolution to increase its current ESOP pool from 666 options to 1,728 options, regulatory filings show.

According to Fintrackr’s calculation, the company has added 1,062 fresh options worth Rs 173 crore or $23.7 million to take the total ESOP pool size to Rs 282 crore or $38.5 million.

It’s worth noting that OfBusiness had concluded its $110 million D2 round led by Falcon Edge in April 2021. According to the company, it had also facilitated the exit of 12 angel investors and rewarded its 73 employees with an ESOP liquidation program worth $13 million during the last funding round.

OfBusiness has joined the likes of ShareChat, Paytm, Urban Company, Bijak, PhonePe and Chaayos which also expanded their ESOP pool size in 2021. Moreover, the company now joins the august list of Swiggy, Licious, Paytm, CRED, FarEye, Udaan, Nykaa, Zetwerk, upGrad and Razorpay which have awarded their employees with an ESOP buyback and liquidation program.

Seven-year-old OfBusiness helps source raw material and provides companies with a portal to bid for government tenders. The company also provides collateral-free loans of up to Rs 2 crore to merchants that have working capital requirements. 

OfBusiness works with companies such as Godrej, Zomato and Reliance Industries to ease the process of the agri-product supply chain.

According to the company’s website, it works with more than 5,000 clients and has over 2,000 suppliers on the platform.

The company is reportedly in talks with Japanese investor SoftBank to raise around $100-150 million. The anticipated investment from the Japan-based investor is likely to turn the Ashish Mohapatra-led company into a unicorn. The company was valued at around $800 million during the Series D2 round in April.

Moglix, Zetwerk, Zeta and Infra.Market are the other four startups in the B2B segment that turned unicorn in 2021.