Unacademy announces Teacher Stock Options for its educators

Online learning firm Unacademy is planning to give stock options to educators on its platform, meant to motivate them and retain quality talent for the SoftBank-backed company.

“We are announcing Teacher Stock Options (TSOPs) for all Unacademy Educators. Unacademy Educators will be eligible for fully vested Stock Grants on completion of 3, 4 and 5 years with Unacademy,” co-founder and CEO Gaurav Munjal tweeted.

“On Day One (which is today) we already have more than 300 Educators eligible for the Grant which they will get immediately. Over the next few years we will give Grants of over $40M to our Educators,” he added.

The move is so far unique in the education ecosystem- online or offline- even as in the offline world, teaching is said to not pay too well.

Unacademy currently provides test preparation services for civil services exams, engineering and medical entrance exams among others. Via acquisitions it has also forayed into other education sub-segments, including tutoring classes for school kids.

Its investors include Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Management and General Atlantic among others. It became a unicorn last year, valued at over a billion dollars when it raised money from SoftBank’s Vision Fund. It is currently raising money at $3.5 billion from Temasek, according to media reports.

“We are who we are because of our Educators and we want our Educators to grow and create wealth as Unacademy grows!” Munjal said.