Swiggy starts ESOP liquidity programme worth $23 mn, expands offering

Food delivery firm Swiggy said on Thursday it has reached its first milestone in implementing a two-year ESOP (employee stock ownership plan) liquidity programme. About 900 Swiggy employees are eligible for this, according to sources.

Swiggy employees will this year have the option to receive liquidity of up to $23 million against their ESOPs. The next round of liquidity will be in July 2023. “Rewarding employees by creating wealth opportunities is one of our priorities at Swiggy,” said Girish Menon, head of HR at Swiggy. “We are happy seeing the wealth created for employees from the recent ESOP liquidity event.”

The Bengaluru-based company has around 5,000 employees. Swiggy announced a new programme called Build Your Own Dollar (BYOD) that allows all employees to invest in ESOPs. The offer was limited to employees above a certain grade and/ or based on performance.

“Taking this further, we are delighted to now extend the opportunity to own Swiggy  ESOPs to all employees through our BYOD program,” said Menon. “We are committed to enabling every employee to potentially gain from our growth and success.”

Deepinder Goyal, co-founder and CEO of Swiggy’s Zomato, said in May he is donating all his ESOP proceeds worth Rs 700 crore ($90 million) to Zomato Future Foundation (ZFF), according to an internal communication he sent to his employees

Goyal was granted some ESOPS by the investors and board basis on past performance, right before the company went public last year. Some of these ESOPs vested last month because there is a minimum 1-year vesting required as per law.

In May this year, Fintech unicorn Razorpay said it has launched its fourth and largest ESOP sale for its 650 existing and former employees as part of a $75 million (Rs 578 Crore) transaction, irrespective of ranks.