Synaptic announces $1-M maiden ESOP buyback

Synaptic, an alternative data insights company, has announced its maiden employee stock options (ESOPs) buyback worth $1 million for its current employees. 

Eligible employees can sell up to 25% of their vested shares, the Gurugram-based startup told YourStory. Fourteen current employees–17.5% of the total 80 employees–will be able to participate in the buyback, based on the duration of employment. 

The co-founders of the startup, Rohit Razdan and Anurag Abbott, will also be participating in the buyback.

“The idea was to recognise the value they have created (employees) for us over the years and give them some part of the value,” said Rohit.

Anurag, in a statement, said, “We have designed our ESOP programme to be best-in-class with employee-friendly features such as an extremely long exercise period and monthly vesting to reflect this intent."

The startup expects to close this in the next 15 to 20 days. 

The buyback was in the plans for a year, said Rohit. So far, “the response has been really positive,” he said. “It tells about the comfort with our runway and the potential we see in the business.”

Synaptic had raised $20 million in a Series B round led by Valor Equity Partners in May this year. Previously, it had raised $6 million in equity capital across seed and Series A rounds from Ribbit Capital, Felicis Ventures, and Vy Capital Management.  

The startup was incubated inside Vy Capital by former technology executives at the investment firm, Anurag Abbott and Rohit Razdan, and spun out into a separate entity in 2016. The Synaptic platform, which provides actionable insights, is used by global VC and private equity firms, hedge funds, and asset managers across markets in the US and the UK.

In the last year or so, startups have increasingly used ESOPs as a tool to attract and retain talent in a competitive market. For employees, such plans are useful in wealth creation.