Zerodha, India's largest brokerage firm, aims to buyback shares from early employees at a valuation of $2 billion, founder and CEO Nithin Kamath tweeted on May 28.
Zerodha had bought back shares from its employees last year when it was valued at $1 billion.
It plans to buy back employee stock option plans (ESOP) worth about $25 million (Rs 150-200 crore) in July-August this year, a move that will benefit 900 out of its total 1000 employees, Kamath told Moneycontrol.
Kamath tweeted that the brokerage being valued at $2 billion was for him personally, the 'proudest moment in this journey'.
Kamath said that their business has high risks and so the valuations are conservative.
He cautioned that while the brokerage's growth is exciting, the firm knows that this isn’t sustainable. A broking business is an extremely high beta - highly correlated with the market conditions. Even if there was a mini bear market, our business could drop by 40 percent in a heartbeat, Kamath tweeted.
Bangalore-based fintech unicorn Zerodha was started in 2010 by brothers Nithin and Nikhil Kamath and grew from a startup to India's largest brokerage.