Audio series platform Pocket FM has announced that the company has completed its first employee stock option (Esop) buyback worth $8.3 million.

Many former and existing employees, holding vested stocks in the company, participated in this process, said the company in its statement.

“Today marks a significant milestone for our team - a testament to our collective hard work, dedication and innovative spirit. This emphasises our continued commitment to acknowledging the efforts of our teams and we’re pleased that despite the challenging economic conditions, we remain unwavering in offering opportunities for wealth creation and fostering a culture of growth within Pocket FM. As we continue our journey of entertaining people worldwide, we will keep pushing boundaries, innovating relentlessly and striving for excellence together,” said Rohan Nayak, Co-Founder and CEO, Pocket FM.

Esops are a retention tool that startups have for their employees. Recently, e-commerce major, Meesho, also announced Esop buyback programme worth ₹200 crore.

Startups like Razorpay, Udaan, Flipkart, Classplus have been conducting Esop buybacks over the past 12-18 months. In July last year, the Flipkart group conducted a one-time payout for employees worth $700 million linked to PhonePe’s funding round.

This comes after the Bengaluru-based company had raised $103 million in its Series D funding—its largest yet— led by Lightspeed Ventures, with Stepstone Group also participating valuing the company at $750 million.

Besides Lightspeed, China’s tech major Tencent, Tanglin Venture Partners, Bennett Coleman & Company Ltd (BCCL) and Times Internet are its investors. In total, PocketFM has so far raised just under $200 million.

Pocket FM plans to use the money to strengthen its presence in the US as well as to expand to Europe and Latin American markets, apart from shoring up its content library and creating a strong IP playbook for its writers.

Founded in 2018 as an audio series platform, Pocket FM has 130 million users worldwide and has over 1,00,000 hours of content, including more than 2,000 exclusive audio series and more than 4,00,000 episodes across genres and languages.

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