incentiv

An insane quote I read today: “I know people who joined Flipkart as freshers in 2012 who are now roaming around with Rs 12 cr cheques, but are still not able to find a villa in Adarsh Palm Retreat.” How? ESOP liqudity. It's been fuelling Bengaluru's real estate market. Why real estate? Because any LTCG on the sale of equity is offset by buying real estate. Funny to see how my dream Total Environment home is being bought by a 26 year old whose bet (ESOPs) paid off. incentiv is on a mission to make ESOP and equity liquidity seamless for everyone. We are actively working with founders and shareholders to make this happen. If liquidity and exits matters to you, let's talk. Ranjit Sundaram Indranil Tiwary Chetan Pasari #incentiv #secondaries #privateequity #startups #indianstartups #esops #liquidity

Some side effects of giving your employees liquidity for their ESOPs? 1: Existing employee morale and productivity will be boosted multi-fold. Go ask any founder who has given their employees any kind of liquidity. Loyalty pro-max guaranteed. 2: They will want more ESOPs. I've heard of founders who had employees trying to bargain for a higher stock option component in their compensation proportionate to cash. 3: Hoarde of new talent knocking your door. The word spreads that your company's ESOPs mean something and that you will take care of them. If you're running a new company, you don't need to create secondaries today. But have it in your roadmap at least. If you are curious to know more about how secondaries works and how incentiv can help you create liquidity for yourself, your employees and shareholders, let's talk. #incentiv #secondaries #privateequity #esops #liquidity #startupequity #indianstartups Indranil Tiwary Ranjit Sundaram Chetan Pasari

A lot of founders seem to be misguided when it comes to their stock option plans. Here are a few problems I have seen.. 1: Most plans that we see are either not tax friendly or are not created with the company's goals in mind. 2: Too many vesting schedules and no standardization as to when options are given out in a year - a hell to track. 3: Essential terms are non-existent, the pool is abysmally small and very little wiggle room is left to craft great ESOP offers to employees. 4: Lack of data hygiene. Most use a basic sheet to track stock options with no method of calculating ESOP expenses, vesting, perquisite tax calculations, SH6 register, etc., 5: There is no upfront planning for secondaries, buybacks, or exits. 6: There are no guardrails to protect the company or the employee's interest. No proper post-cessation policies in place. 7: Filings are not on time and non-compliance right from the beginning (fines can be in lakhs. High enough to cripple your startup). These mistakes are usually very very expensive - companies spend lakhs trying to fix these issues and some of them create a nightmare during fundraising due diligence. We've built something special for founders looking to prevent these mistakes. If you or your company has given ESOPs or planning to give it out, I'd like to let you in on it. Send me a DM and let's talk! #incentiv #stockoptions #esops #privateequity #startupequity #employeestockoptions Indranil Tiwary Ranjit Sundaram Chetan Pasari

Great companies value every member of their team, from the driver to the CEO. Great to see EazyDiner setting an example for companies in the hospitality sector with its large 100+ crore ESOP pool. Congratulations on this Kapil Chopra. Hope every single employee gets to experience that feeling of owning a meaningful piece of the company and may their fortunes grow with that of their company.

"Even the smallest resolution requires me to run after all our shareholders. I need to clean up my cap table before the next fundraise. Can you guys help?" - a founder who raised capital from a ton of people and now has a crowded cap table. In this world, there are mostly two kinds of funded companies - one, with a crowded cap table that needs cleaning; two, a company that had a crowded cap table and cleaned it. incentiv works with the former kind and helps companies provide secondary exits to shareholders sitting on crowded cap tables. It's a win-win-win for all. For the shareholder, they get to realise the returns on their investments. For founders, they get to declutter their company's shareholding pattern and make operations more efficient. For investors, they get access to solid companies through the secondary route. If you're exploring secondaries, we should talk. #incentiv #secondaries #privateequity #startupequity #exits #liquidity Chetan Pasari Ranjit Sundaram Indranil Tiwary

A trend I have noticed lately is of founders with crowded cap tables wanting to clean it up. They come to me saying, "I want to give this list of investors an exit. How can we do this?" It's interesting to see that when presented with a good solution, founders always want to make sure that their shareholders get an exit. And to make the deal even sweeter, most of them have their employees get liquidity for their ESOPs as part of the same secondaries deal too. And it just wouldn't be possible if the whole process wasn't done through a platform. It would take far more time, a lot more people involved, more noise and significantly more expensive. We have been tweaking our model for the past 2 years to bring it to this point and now we're looking forward to work with founders everywhere looking to clean up their cap tables and give their shareholders exits. My team and I would be happy to connect with you and take you through the process. Let's talk. #incentiv #secondaries #privateequity #startupequity #liquidity #esops Ranjit Sundaram Chetan Pasari Indranil Tiwary

"I have hundreds of employees who I want to offer secondaries to. But they only have stock options. It'll take too much time and effort." Yes and No! Traditionally, from board resolutions to exercising, tax collections to P n L reporting, share transfers to cap table reconciliation - it could take 6 to 8 months (not exaggerating) minimum. We've done complex deals in a few weeks. Our platform and software stack makes this possible and seamless for your finance team, secretarial team, ESOP holders, and shareholders. If you're a founder looking at doing secondaries for your employees sometime soon, let's talk. #incentiv #secondaries #privateequity #startupequity #indianstartups #liquidity #esops Indranil Tiwary Chetan Pasari Ranjit Sundaram

I've been tracking the space of private equity and secondaries for a while now, and there has been more action in the past few months the the last couple of years. The past two years saw large secondaries where very few stakeholders at huge companies got the lion's share of the exit. But this time around, we're seeing secondaries being meaningful for a lot more. This time, there are employees to tell you their lifechanging story of making retirement money with their ESOP secondaries. There are angels who have seen their entire portfolios return multifold because of a sudden liquidity event that came out of nowhere. We're seeing founders buying their parents homes with secondaries money that they didn't know would come so soon. And smaller VCs getting a fresh batch of exits, thereby guaranteeing their future and reputation. It's not just the big multi-billion secondaries that everyone seems to notice about that are happening, but countless smaller ones that are silently changing lives of innumerable people. And incentiv is right at the centre of this with the infrastructure that we have built and the companies that we have been able to help. With our platform and tools, we will enable countless more to experience what secondaries feels like. What liquidity feels like. What that "it was all worth it" moment feels like. And we're so excited for you to experience it. Let's talk. Let's make it happen! Ranjit Sundaram Indranil Tiwary Chetan Pasari #incentiv #secondaries #privateequity #startupequity #indianstartups #liquidity #esops

If you're accepting ESOPs, ask the founders these questions. If it's an early stage company and you can't ask the founders or talk to them directly, then that's a red flag. If it's a growth/late stage company, then talk to the employees about their experience with ESOPs. If they still haven't done any buybacks/secondaries or have any plan for exit, that is a red flag. Questions to ask. 1: Can I exercise my stock options freely? 2: Can I sell my equity? If not, are there any plans for buybacks or IPO? What are the timelines? 3: Could you share a draft share holder agreement of the share that ESOP holders get? 4: Will there be an official ESOP grant letter? If you're joining a startup, you're putting all your eggs in one basket. So do your due diligence before accepting any equity compensation (whether as a part of salary or perk). If the startup seems like a red flag with respect to their treatment of stock option holders, then negotiate for just cash. I have seen plenty of people with crores in stock options. Crores of which even 100 rupees will probably never hit their bank account. If you want to know more about what incentiv does to solve this problem at the company level, reach out to us. Indranil Tiwary Ranjit Sundaram Chetan Pasari #incentiv #secondarymarket #privateequity #indianstartups #startup

Employee: Hey, I'd like to exercise my stock options. What is the process? HR Head: Currently, we aren't allowing any employees to exercise their ESOPs. If that window opens up, we will let you know. Employee: But why weren't we notified about the buyback that happened last month? Could have exercised and sold some options right? HR Head: The management takes the call on that. Sorry. Employee: Can I at least sell the equity when I exercise? HR Head: You are strictly not allowed to do any third-party transaction. The company will define when it can be exercised. As far as I know, it can only be done during an IPO. Employee: When are we planning for an IPO? HR Head: No plans as of now. The above employee is part of the company's founding team. For every Swiggy or Razorpay employee who has benefited from ESOPs, there are countless employees who has given their all and got responses like this in return. Creating secondary exits are a nightmare for a lot of founders. But incentiv makes it a no-brainer thanks to the platform and solutions that we have built. If you can't convince your founders for secondaries, let them know about Incentiv. Need help with this? Let's talk. Indranil Tiwary Ranjit Sundaram Chetan Pasari #incentiv #secondarymarket #privateequity #indianstartups #startup