Meesho announces ESOP buyback of Rs 200 crore

The social commerce platform Meesho announced the largest employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) buyback, valued at Rs 200 crore. As co-founder Vidit Aatrey said, "We are thrilled to honour our staff members." This action comes after SoftBank led a $570 million investment round for Meesho. Meesho, which employs over 1,500 people, has demonstrated its dedication to rewarding its employees with a buyback. Employees can liquidate their vested ESOPs through the buyback.

"This underscores our commitment to rewarding our teams, and we are pleased that despite prevailing macroeconomic conditions," Ashish Kumar Singh, Meesho's CHRO, said in the blog note.

Over the years, an increasing number of new-age companies, like PhonePe, Swiggy and others, have been rewarding employees with ESOPs and buying them back at a lucrative price, which eventually generates wealth for employees, especially the ones who joined an organisation early.

For SoftBank-backed Meesho, this is the fourth ESOP buyback programme. It first started buying back shares from employees in February 2020. While that was a small $1 million exercise, the total amount later increased as the company grew. In November 2020, Meesho bought back shares worth $5 million and then slightly increased the total size to $5.5 million in October 2021. Backed by Meta, Peak XV, Prosus Ventures, B Capital, and SoftBank, the firm achieved profitability in July 2023.

An AllianceBernstein report puts Meesho's current Gross Merchandise Value run rate at above $5 billion.