CRED to undertake ESOP buyback worth Rs 100 crore this year

Kunal Shah founded CRED in 2018. Illustration: Suneesh K

Fintech CRED on November 8 announced that its cumulative Employee Stock Option Programme (ESOP) buyback for the year will be up to Rs 100 crore. This comes after the company introduced CRED’s Accelerated Wealth Program in August this year to enable its employees to build wealth.

Team members who have vested options as of October 31, 2021, will be eligible to participate in the buyback and sell a portion of their vested shares, the company said in its October newsletter.

“Our growth over the past 3 years has been possible because of the collective conviction and contribution of the team. Rewarding the commitment of our team members involves providing them ample opportunities to create wealth- helping them realise financial goals and invest in their future,” the newsletter read.

In January this year, the startup had completed an ESOP buyback worth Rs 9 crore ($1.2 million) post its $81 million Series C fundraise.

“As we raise funds to support our next phase of growth, it's important to acknowledge the role that employees have played in our success. We are committed to enabling wealth-creation opportunities for them and have allocated 10% of our capital allocated for ESOPs even at the Series C stage,” the company’s founder Kunal Shah had said in a statement at the time.

The company later joined the unicorn club in April after a $215 million Series D round fundraise that valued the company at $2.2 billion. The round saw participation from investors like Tiger Global Management, DST Global, Sequoia Capital, and Falcon Edge Capital. A unicorn is a privately funded company valued at $1 billion or above.

Founded by Kunal Shah in 2018, CRED started as an invite-only app enabling reward-based credit card payments. The Bengaluru-based startup says its 7.5 million users are 35 percent of premium credit cardholders in India and that it processes a quarter of credit card bill payments in the country.

In August, CRED introduced CRED Mint a peer-to-peer lending product offering members returns of up to 9 percent per annum. Members can lend/borrow in between Rs 1 lakh - Rs 10 lakh. The company also provides a short-term lending product, CRED Cash, and has a loan book of over Rs 2,000 crore.