Edtech company Unacademy has reportedly announced its largest employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) buyback strategy worth USD 10.5 million for its educators and team members. The Co-Founder of Unacademy, Roman Saini, mentioned that it was the largest buyback executed by the company and expressed his gratitude towards the employees for trusting the vision of education democratization.

On July 29, the Bengaluru-based online learning company stated that it planned to provide stock alternatives to educators on its platform to encourage and retain quality talent.

Gaurav Munjal, the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Unacademy commented that the company is announcing TSOPs (Teacher Stock Options) for all educators associated with Unacademy. The educators will be qualified for fully vested Stock Grants on completing 3, 4 as well as 5 years with the company.

He added that the firm had over 300 educators qualified for the Grant on day one. It will provide Grants worth USD 40 million to the educators over the next few years, said Munjal. The TSOP move is very distinctive in the education ecosystem, offline or online, even as in the offline world, teaching is not a well-paid profession.

Unacademy offers test preparation services for engineering, medical entrance as well as civil services exams. It has also ventured into other education sub-segments which include coaching classes for school kids.

Tiger Global Management, General Atlantic, along with Sequoia Capital are some of the investors in Unacademy. In 2020, the company became a unicorn, achieving a valuation of more than a billion dollars with money raised from Vision Fund of SoftBank.

On August 2, 2021, the startup supposedly raised USD 440 million which was led by Temasek, a sovereign wealth fund. This valued the company at USD 3.4 billion which is a ten-fold rise in 18 months.

SoftBank, along with Tiger Global and General Atlantic participated in this funding round. Korean firm Mirae Asset, Deepinder Goyal, the Founder and CEO of Zomato, Ritesh Agarwal, OYO Founder’s family office Aroa Ventures are some of the company’s new investors.

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https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/unacademy-announces-esops-buyback-worth-10-5-million-7430481.html