Amagi Founders Bought Shares Worth INR 9 Cr Ahead Of Filing DRHP

In the run up to the media-focussed SaaS company Amagi filing its draft IPO papers, its cofounders bought back 3.5 Mn equity shares at INR 25 apiece from existing investors Accel, Norwest Venture, Premji Invest, among others. Overall, they bought shares worth INR 8.77 Cr. 

As per the share purchase agreements signed on July 21, Vinculum Advisors LLP, set up by Amagi cofounders Baskar Subramanian, Srividhya Srinivasan, and Srinivasan KA, bought back the company’s shares from the investors in the run up to filing the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP). 

On July 22, the LLP, which is a part of the company’s promoter group, bought shares worth INR 3.3 Cr from Premji Invest, shares worth about INR 2 Cr from Accel and 7.16 Lakh shares from Norwest Venture Partners. 

On the subsequent two days, Trudy Holdings, Kalpa Partners, Armada Venture Partners and Pandora also sold shares to the promoter group entity. 

Following the acquisition of shares, Vinculum Advisors LLP’s stake in the SaaS unicorn zoomed to 1.71%. Meanwhile, the cofounders together cumulatively held 14.05% stake in the company on the day of filing the IPO papers. 

During April 1 to July 25, the company also granted 4.1 Mn shares to its key management personnel and senior management. The company’s CFO Vijay NP was granted 648K shares, while Amagi’s chief revenue officer Sangeeta Chakraborty, who joined the company in June this year, was granted 537K shares. 

Notably, none of Amagi’s cofounders, the promoter group, or its top executives will be selling any of their holdings in its public issue. The media-focussed SaaS company’s IPO will comprise a fresh issue of up to INR 1,020 Cr and an offer for sale of up to 34.2 Mn shares. 

While Premji Invest will sell up to 14.7 Mn shares, Norwest will be the second largest selling shareholder. Accel plans to sell slightly over 6 Mn shares in the public offer.

It is pertinent to mention that it is not uncommon for founders of new-age tech companies to alter their ownership ahead of filing the DRHP. For instance, Urban Company’s cofounders cumulatively sold shares worth nearly INR 779.08 Cr in secondary deals in the six-month period prior to filing for the IPO in April. Similar was the case for Swiggy CEO Sriharsha Majety, who sold shares worth INR 23 Cr ahead of the company’s IPO filing. 

However, the increase in stakes of Amagi cofounders is similar to Lenskart founder Peyush Bansal’s buy back of shares in the two weeks leading up to the company filing its IPO papers. As per Lenskart’s DRHP, Bansal bought 4.3 Cr shares at INR 52 each for a total of a whopping INR 221.1 Cr during the aforementioned period.