B2B eCommerce Platform Udaan Offers Employee Stock Options, Sets Firmer IPO Date

Indian B2B eCommerce platform udaan will issue employee stock options (Esop) to each of its workers as it prepares for an initial public offering (IPO) next year, The Economic Times reported Wednesday (Feb. 16).

The company has also made a policy change that allows employees to vest stocks each quarter, instead of waiting a year, as is common practice among many startups, the report stated.

The company has 4,600 employees, all of them eligible for the program. The report noted that several startups have bought back Esops from staff recently, including Flipkart.

Also Wednesday, udaan CEO Vaibhav Gupta put a firmer date on the company’s planned IPO, which is now slated for May 2023, according to the report.

News broke last month that the company was planning to go public sometime in the next 18 months following a $250 million funding round.

Read more: B2B eCommerce Platform Udaan Plans IPO After $250M Fundraise

Gupta told The Economic Times that he is confident udaan will be ready for an IPO by the end of 2022 and that the company had been improving its gross margins each quarter.

“I feel good about the journey towards the IPO and we are targeting [it] in May next year,” he said, per the report. “I feel that on the business side, on the team side, and on the team side, and on the capital side, we are progressing well towards that.”

Last year, udaan raised $280 million to reach out to more small businesses, expand its product selection, improve its supply chain finance infrastructure, and expand its financing capabilities.

See more: Udaan Raises $280M for B2B eCommerce in India

Co-Founder Amod Malviya said at the time that company was “at the forefront of this uniquely Indian e-commerce opportunity” over the past decade and was working on an “India-first mobile-first” approach to eCommerce.