Gurugram: Urban Company, Asia’s largest home services marketplace, recently concluded its fourth and largest ESOP sale programme worth INR 55 Cr. (US$ 7.3 million). The ESOPs sold in this transaction have largely been purchased by existing institutional investors of the company. The transaction culminated at a valuation of US$ 2.8 B, up from US$ 2.1 B for the Series F round in June 2021.
Over the last 7 years, Urban Company has issued ESOPs to 940 current and ex-employees. 550 of these 940 individuals have vested ESOPs, and were eligible to participate in this secondary sale programme. Employees and ex-employees could sell up to 100% of their vested ESOPs as part of this sale programme.
Below are the details of the ESOP sale programme. While 100% of the vested ESOPs were eligible for sale, only 4.4% of the vested ESOPs held by current employees were liquidated, and only 10% of the vested ESOPs held by ex-employees were liquidated. This is also a positive sign and indicates that employees (current and former) believe in the future success of the company.
Raghav Chandra, Co-founder, Urban Company said, “This is our fourth and largest ESOP secondary sale we have facilitated to date. Since 2017, we have facilitated approximately Rs. 100 Cr. worth of ESOP secondaries. In our experience, such liquidation opportunities strengthen the faith team members have in ESOPs as a wealth creation instrument. Further, we have focussed on creating an employee-friendly ESOP programme, with features such as an exercise price of INR 1, a linear vesting schedule and an unlimited hold period to exercise the ESOPs after an employee leaves the company.”
Urban Company’s first ESOP sale occurred in June 2017, followed by the second ESOP sale in December 2018 and the third sale in August 2020. Across the 4 ESOP secondaries, the company has facilitated approximately Rs. 100 Cr. worth of liquidity for its employees and ex-employees.
Urban Company’s rewards philosophy focuses on fairness, meritocracy, ownership and long-term thinking. The key principles of our rewards philosophy are:
- Fair and equitable compensation benchmarked with the market and driven by performance
- Building ownership over time through ESOPs and focusing on total wealth creation
- Compounding wealth creation by awarding outsize awards to high performers
