Vedantu initiates first ESOP liquidity plan worth Rs 20 Cr

Edtech startup Vedantu has initiated its first-ever employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) liquidity plan worth Rs 20 crore for its employees under the startup’s ESOP linked bonus pay-out scheme, according to an internal company email. 

The company will do more similar rounds in the future while expanding the scope of coverage to more of its employees, as per the email sent by Vedantu’s CEO Vamsi Krishna on Friday, a copy of which Entrackr has seen.

We have reached out to Vedantu for more details and will update the story when they respond.

Earlier this month, fintech firm PhonePe had announced a Rs 135 crore ESOP liquidity program for its top leadership and other employees. Social commerce startup Meesho also recently announced a Rs 41 crore [$5.5 million] ESOP liquidity scheme. 

In fact, in the first half of 2021 itself, around a dozen companies announced their ESOP buyback plans worth more than $100 million, according to Fintrackr’s calculations.

Vedantu had turned unicorn in September this year following a $100 million financing round led by Singapore based ABC World Asia and participated by Coatue, Tiger Global, GGV Capital, Westbridge and others.

Vedantu’s core offering covers online classes from grade 6 to 12 along with materials from grade 1 to 12 and JEE. The company ventured into kids coding space (age bracket 6-12) in May 2020.

Vedantu is yet to file its annual financial report for FY21. However, its losses in FY20 had widened to Rs 158.5 crore, against Rs 27 crore in FY19. According to Fintrackr, its total revenues for the fiscal ending March 2020 stood at Rs 35.8 crore against Rs 12.4 crore in FY19.

While the current shareholding structure of Vedantu is unknown, Accel was the biggest stakeholder in the company followed by Omidyar and Tiger after the completion of the Series D round. According to Fintrackr, Chinese education major TAL Learning was also a significant stakeholder in Vedantu. Importantly, the three co-founders’ collective holding stood at 7.62% collectively at that time.