Crypto unicorn: CoinSwitch Kuber completes first Esop buyback
- ByStartupStory | March 21, 2022
CoinSwitch Kuber, a Crypto unicorn completed its first-ever buyback of employee stock ownership plan (Esop). The round, worth about ₹19 crore ($2.5 million), was funded through a mix of internal and external resources, said Ashish Singhal, co-founder and chief executive, CoinSwitch. Last September the company turned a unicorn following a $260 million Series C funding round via American venture capital firms Coinbase Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz.
The equity buyback programme is a small effort in order to acknowledge our employees’ contribution, said Singhal. He didn’t mention about how many employees availed of the buyback.
In the last two years, CoinSwitch’s workforce grew from 20 to 500 employees so it’s likely that Esops given to most of the employees are yet to vest.
As part of their salaries either at the time of hiring or during appraisals, startups allocate Esops to employees. These shares have a vesting period, before which employees are not allowed to sell up their holdings. The company has a choice in order to facilitate a buyback option and employees can choose to sell their shares at the time, when the vesting period is over.
The company has been planning to launch “similar liquidity events” in the future, said Singhal. He said through January 2022, CoinSwitch’s user-base jumped from one to 15 million in one year.
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