Exclusive: Swiggy allots stock options worth Rs 329 Cr to its employees and top executives

Foodtech major Swiggy has allotted equity shares under its employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) and management stock ownership plan (MSOP) to its employees and top executives respectively.

According to Swiggy’s regulatory filings, it has allotted ESOP Equity shares worth Rs 132.5 crore to 180 employees. With an ESOP allotment worth Rs 31.2 crore, the company’s CFO Rahul Bothra is the biggest beneficiary of the ESOP program followed by Anuj Rathi (SVP, revenue and growth) who received Rs 20.4 crore worth ESOP.

Phani Kishan Addepalli, who was recently elevated as co-founder of Swiggy and named as CEO of Supr Daily, has received ESOPs amounting to Rs 8.3 crore.

The remaining Rs 72.6 crore worth ESOP has been allotted to 177 employees of the company. Importantly, the company has allotted all the above-stated ESOP shares at an exercise price of Re 1 per share only.  

In a separate filing, Swiggy has also allotted MSOP equity shares worth Rs 196.4 crore to its co-founder and CEO Sriharsh Majety.

The development comes soon after the announcement of an organisation-wide ESOP liquidity program for 2022 and 2023 by Swiggy. According to the SoftBank-backed company, the new liquidity program is likely to be valued at up to $35-40 million (Rs 260-295 crore) and the figure will increase in line with the company’s valuation.

Swiggy was valued at $5.6 billion during its latest fundraise of $1.25 billion in July this year. Meanwhile, it is gearing up for another round that may push its valuation closer to $10 billion. 

This is the second allotment of equity shares under ESOP scheme by the Bengaluru-based company. In April, it had allotted 500 equity shares worth Rs 11.8 crore ( each share being 236,000) to the leadership team including former COO Vivek Sunder, CTO Dale Vaz, CFO Rahul Bothra and HR head Girish Menon. In June, Sunder had moved on from Swiggy and three months later, he joined edtech startup Cuemath as CEO.