Razorpay announces employee stock ownership plan buyback for 650 staff

BENGALURU: Financial services company Razorpay has announced its largest ESOP (employee stock ownership plan) buyback plan for its employees, as part of a Rs 578 crore transaction.

This is Razorpay’s fourth ESOP sale, and it is for 650 existing and former employees, the company said. Employees who hold stocks will be eligible to sell up to 30% of their vested ESOP shares.

The sale is led by marquee tech investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and Moore Strategic Ventures, who are also joining as partners.

The company has been facilitating the ESOP sale for the past three years and last year, it was worth over Rs 73 crore.

This year, the company looks to benefit employees across roles- such as software engineers, product managers, customer experience agents and sales.

In the start-up industry, ESOP sales have been a source of significant wealth creation for employees.

Harshil Mathur, CEO & Co-founder, Razorpay, said, “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. In the last year, Razorpay grew over 300% and we plan to achieve $90 billion TPV (total payment volume) by the end of 2022.”

Razorpay, which was valued at $7.5 billion after its $375 million Series F funding round last year, forayed into the international markets with the acquisition of Malaysian-based firm Curlec and closed its fifth acquisition IZealiant recently. It plans to increase its merchant count from 8 million to 10 million by 2022.

Razorpay conducted its first ESOP sale in Nov 2018, and the second and third ESOP sales were in Nov 2019 and March 2021. Till now, the fintech major has awarded ESOPs to 1,940 existing and former employees.