SoftBank-backed Unacademy announces teacher stock options worth $40 mn

Softbank-backed edtech start-up Unacademy, has announced Teacher Stock Options (TSOPs), the first educator liquidity event for educators on the platform. Over $40 million stocks will be issued to Unacademy educators over the course of the next few years.

“We are announcing Teacher Stock Options (TSOPs) for all Unacademy educators,” Unacademy co-founder and CEO said in a tweet. “We are who we are because of our Educators and we want our Educators to grow and create wealth as Unacademy grows.”

Unacademy competes with players such as Byju’s, Vedantu, Simplilearn, UpGrad, Amazon Academy, and traditional education institutes. They are jostling  to tap India's $180-billion education sector as the  coronavirus pandemic forces the learning to go online.

Over 300 educators will be eligible to receive the stock options with an immediate vesting. Unacademy said all educators are eligible for it. As of today, 300 educators get it. As more educators hit the tenure slabs, they will become eligible too.

The issuance will be subject to the tenure of the educator on the platform. TSOPs grant will be equivalent to 3 months of base pay after the completion of 5 years, 2 months of base pay after the completion of 4 years and 1 month of base pay for a 3-year vintage.

Many companies in India are offering wealth creation opportunities for their employees and stakeholders amid the pandemic.

This week SoftBank-backed mobility firm Ola, also announced expansion of its employee stock options (ESOP) pool to Rs 3,000 crore. Ola is also allocating an additional Rs 400 crore worth of stocks to employees in the run up to its IPO. The allocation rewards Ola’s high impact employees and will lead to long term wealth creation for them.

In February, Walmart-owned digital payments firm PhonePe distributed ESOPs (employee stock ownership plans) worth $200 million (about Rs 1500 crore) among its 2,200 employees.

This month Flipkart offered a wealth creation opportunity under which its employees will have the option to liquidate their vested Esops (employees stock ownership plan) under the buyback worth Rs 600 crore.