Women are paid more than men in India's listed tech unicorns, except Nykaa

The highest difference is in troubled fintech major Paytm, where the median wage of female employees was 160 percent more than that of their male counterparts in FY24. Picture credit: Microsoft Copilot

Women employees have a higher median wage than their male counterparts in India's listed tech unicorns like Zomato, Paytm, Delhivery and Mamaearth, with the exception of Nykaa, according to details furnished by the companies in their annual reports.

The highest difference is in fintech major Paytm, where the median wage of female employees was 160 percent more than that of their male counterparts in FY24.

However, the median pay of women in cosmetics and fashion marketplace Nykaa — which boasts Falguni Nayar as its founder and chief executive officer — is 27 percent lower than their male counterparts.

But, Nykaa comes ahead of others in terms of the ratio of number of male employees to female employees in the company. While it is the worst for Delhivery at 17.5 male workers for every female worker, Nykaa is the best at 1.79.

Paytm is only slightly better at 16.5, while Zomato is at 3.29 and Mamaearth at 2.64.

FY24 was a year when salaries in the tech sector remained suppressed due to a funding winter. This reflected in the listed tech unicorns’ annual reports — as the median pay of Zomato employees reduced by 16.8 percent during the financial year, while Delhivery and Nykaa employees saw their median pay remain stagnant.

The outliers here were Paytm which saw a 7 percent rise in median pay and Mamaearth at 20 percent increase.

However, the top bosses of these companies made hay despite the funding winter — mostly on account of stock option payouts.

Take, for instance, embattled fintech unicorn Paytm. As a result of regulatory action, the company was forced to make big changes in its business, and its stock price dropped by 37 percent in FY24.

The fintech firm logged expenses of Rs 1,138 crore during the fiscal on account of ESOPs to its top brass, while the cash component was about Rs 11 crore. As Paytm’s total ESOP cost in FY24 was Rs 1,466 crore, it also means that 78 percent of the stock option expenses were due to its KMPs, directors, and their relatives. This figure was 77 percent in FY23, when the company’s total ESOP cost was Rs 1,456 crore.

Paytm’s KMPs include Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Madhur Deora.

Meanwhile, its fintech peer Policybazaar revealed that it incurred expenses of Rs 121 crore towards the remuneration (including ESOPs) of Co-Founder and CEO Yashish Dahiya, Rs 53 crore for Co-Founder and Vice-Chairman Alok Bansal, Rs 21 crore for Group President Sarbvir Singh, and Rs 6 crore for Group CFO Mandeep Mehta.

However, these top four Policybazaar bosses made Rs 201 crore cumulatively in FY24 — down 42 percent from Rs 345 crore in FY23.

Delhivery Co-Founder and CEO Sahil Barua's compensation cost the company Rs 66 crore in FY24, while the number was Rs 50 crore for its Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Kapil Bharati, and Rs 4.7 crore for Co-Founder and Head of New Ventures, Suraj Saharan.

The situation is not too different for Zomato. Of the company’s total ESOP expenses of Rs 515 crore in FY24, its Founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal was responsible for Rs 117 crore and CFO Akshant Goyal for Rs 52 crore. The duo accounted for 33 percent of the company’s ESOP expenses in the last fiscal and 74 percent in FY23.

The main reason for most of the new age companies’ large remunerations is big ESOP packages granted to founders. These firms changed their company structures from promoter-operated to professional manager-operated before their public market debuts, which enabled them to grant ESOPs to founders, as regulations prohibit such pay to promoters.

The impact is visible when one looks at the top deck’s remuneration in promoter-controlled new-age companies like Nykaa and Mamaearth.

Nykaa founder Falguni Nayar's remuneration was Rs 8.7 crore in FY24, whereas her children, Executive Directors Anchit and Adwaita  Nayar, each took home Rs 4.3 crore. Mamaearth Co-Founders Varun and Ghazal Alagh received Rs 3.5 crore and Rs 1.8 crore, respectively.