Razorpay, India’s payment and banking platform has announced its fourth and largest Employee Stock Ownership plan (ESOP) sale for its 650 existing and former employees, as part of a $75 mn (INR 578 Crore) transaction, irrespective of rank.
The Company is one of the few startups in India to have organised a facilitation sale of ESOPs consecutively for the last three years. Last year, the sale was worth $10 Mn (INR 73 Crore). This year, all employees across levels and roles will be benefited from the sale of ESOPs. All employees from software engineers, product managers, customer-experience agents, sales, and administrative staff will be benefited. Current and former employees, as young as 22 years of age, who hold vested stocks of the company, will be eligible to sell up to 30 per cent of their vested ESOP shares.
Razorpay strongly believes that its employees are quintessential to the growth of the business and ESOP sales are one of the many tangible ways in which Razorpay extends its gratitude to its employees.
This time, ESOP sale is led by key investors such as Lightspeed Venture Partners along with participation from Moore Strategic Ventures, who will subsequently join the company’s cap table.
“Today, we take this opportunity to honor our team but really, the honor is Shashank’s (co-founder) and mine. The last two years have been challenging for each one of us, and despite the challenges, our Razors stuck together and collectively guided the Company through massive growth. I feel nothing but gratitude to see how every teammate in the company believes Razorpay to be their own family and sees it through every challenge. These ESOPs are a way to give back to our Razors and a small effort in making a difference in their lives,” says Harshil Mathur, CEO and co-founder, Razorpay.
He reveals that the Company grew over 300 per cent and plans to achieve $90 Bn total payment volume (TPV) by the end of 2022. He acknowledges the “efforts of our team, the significant digital adoption by small businesses who trusted us, and investors who believed in our vision and purpose”.
Mathur goes on to add “marquee tech investors – Lightspeed Venture Partners and Moore Strategic Ventures as partners in our journey towards building the financial ecosystem for millions of small and medium businesses”.
Razorpay conducted its first ESOP sale in November 2018, for its 140 employees back then. The second and third ESOP sales were conducted in November 2019 and March 2021, during which 400 and 750 employees, respectively were eligible. Till date, the Company has awarded ESOPs to 1940 existing and former employees across levels.
