Perfios, a B2B SaaS fintech company, has announced a buyback of ESOPs from its 135 current and former employees for Rs 154 crore (roughly $18.5 million). With this move, Perfios has joined a small group of growth-stage businesses that have this year bought back employee stock.
According to Perfios, 80 female employees are among the buyback’s beneficiaries, and 62 people have become millionaires as a result of it.
The development happens soon after Perfios’ $229 million Series D round, which was funded by a combination of primary and secondary sales and led by private equity investor Kedaara Capital.
The business has so far raised about $360 million and is probably going to become a unicorn in the upcoming funding round.
In order to produce reports in the areas of credit assessment, monitoring, fraud, and banking data aggregation, Perfios assists in the collection and analysis of financial data including bank statements, tax returns, and business financials. Banks, NBFCs, digital lending platforms, mutual fund companies, insurance companies, and human resources companies are just a few of the large clients it has attracted.
The Bengaluru-based company also acquired Fego.ai, a Chennai-based open finance platform that provides developers with an open-finance product stack, last month.
Although there was a decline in the number of ESOP buybacks in 2023, there was a record-breaking amount of buyback and payout. Data gathered by TheKredible shows that since January 2020, more than 80 startups have purchased ESOPs totalling more than $1.45 billion.
Foodtech giant Swiggy completed the second installment of its committed $50 million ESOP liquidity program during the current calendar year. Flipkart, which is owned by Walmart, disclosed in July that it would pay its staff an ESOP payout of $700 million. Wedding and matrimony services startup Betterhalf and B2B delivery and shared mobility startup Zypp Electric also joined the ESOP buyback list.
