{"id":15355,"date":"2024-04-01T19:13:04","date_gmt":"2024-04-01T19:13:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/01\/pocket-fm-completes-first-ever-esop-buyback-worth-8-3-million\/"},"modified":"2024-04-01T19:13:04","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T19:13:04","slug":"pocket-fm-completes-first-ever-esop-buyback-worth-8-3-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/01\/pocket-fm-completes-first-ever-esop-buyback-worth-8-3-million\/","title":{"rendered":"Pocket FM completes first ever Esop buyback worth $8.3 million"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pocket<\/div>


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Online audio streaming platform Pocket FM<\/a> on Monday announced the completion of its first employee stock option plan<\/a> (Esop) buyback worth $8.3 million (about Rs 69 crore). The buyback was open to both former and current employees holding vested Esops in the Bengaluru-based firm. <\/p>\n

Pocket FM currently has about 800 employees and a four-year vesting period, under which 25% of Esops are vested in the first year, after which they vest at a monthly rate.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe are excited about the successful completion of our first Esop buyback<\/a> round, which witnessed enthusiastic participation from both former and existing employees holding vested stocks. This buyback opportunity underscores our commitment to recognising the invaluable contributions of our team members,\u201d a spokesperson for the firm said, without giving details on how many employees participated in the buyback.<\/p>\n

The buyback comes shortly after the firm raised $103 million from the likes of Lightspeed Ventures and Stepstone Group in late March at a valuation of $750 million. The latest round brought Pocket FM\u2019s total funding to date to $196.5 million.<\/p>\n

On March 22, ET reported that the firm was in talks with investors like the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) to finalise a new fundraising that was expected to value it around $1.2 billion,<\/a> making it a unicorn. So far, only two Indian firms have turned into unicorns this year– Bhavish Aggarwal-run artificial intelligence firm Krutrim AI and B2B fintech company Perfios.<\/p>\n

Amid a funding winter, Pocket FM joins a small set of firms that have instituted Esop buybacks recently. <\/p>\n

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On March 13, Meesho announced an Esop buyback programme worth Rs 200 crore<\/a>, open to around 1,700 former and current employees. On February 14, edtech startup Classplus announced its second Esop buyback offer <\/a>in three years, with 150 employees eligible to participate. Firms like Razorpay and Udaan have also instituted Esop buybacks in the last one-and-half years. In July last year, the Flipkart group conducted a one-time payout for employees worth $700 million linked to PhonePe\u2019s funding round<\/a>, the largest Esop buyback by an Indian new-economy firm to date.<\/div>\n

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Online audio streaming platform Pocket FM on Monday announced the completion of its first employee stock option plan (Esop) buyback worth $8.3 million (about Rs 69 crore). The buyback was open to both former and current employees holding vested Esops in the Bengaluru-based firm. Pocket FM currently has about 800 employees and a four-year vesting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/img.etimg.com\/photo\/88591548.cms","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[607],"tags":[21175,21176,10118,21174,21148,21173,11884,2458,8480,21172,1842],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15355"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15355"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15357,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15355\/revisions\/15357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}