Exclusive: CRED Launches 4th ‘Accelerated Wealth Programme’; Records Lifetime ESOP Buyback Of INR 250 Cr

Fintech unicorn Cred initiated its fourth Accelerated Wealth Programme (AWP) for employees earlier this week, offering employees the chance to purchase additional stock options with an accelerated vesting period, sources told Inc42.

The programme is said to be an additional wealth creation opportunity for CRED employees besides the traditional ESOPs and will remain open till March 31, 2024.

Sources added that the company has offered four liquidation opportunities to its employees since inception in 2018, cumulatively worth INR 250 Cr (about $30 Mn) in wealth generation.

In a standard ESOP plan, liquidation opportunities typically are only available during a primary or secondary funding round, acquisition, or an initial public offering (IPO). As per sources, around one-third of CRED employees have participated in the AWP since its inception, which is indicative of their confidence in the unicorn’s future. 

CRED’s AWP, which was introduced in 2021, is available to all full-time employees. Employees can opt for getting a higher portion of their compensation (up to 50%) in special grant ESOPs which have an accelerated vesting period of one year and get prioritisation in exercisability during liquidity events.

A query mail sent to CRED didn’t elicit any response till the time of publishing this story. 

Founded in 2018 by Kunal Shah, CRED is a payments and lending platform and also offers a range of products built for creditworthy users. 

Since early 2023, CRED has launched products such as vehicle management platform CRED garage and also revamped its travel platform CRED escapes. Besides this, it ventured into buy now pay later (BNPL) with a product called Flash and expanded its retail footprint for UPI and non-UPI merchants. 

Most importantly, the company’s UPI product has gained major traction. Last month (February) , its UPI transaction volume was at 11.87 Cr, a 230% increase from 3.6 Cr in February of last year. The transaction value of CRED’s UPI payments stood at INR 40,525.5 Cr in February 2024, a 126% increase from INR 17,902 Cr in the same month last year. 

Last month, CRED acquired investech platform Kuvera to enter the fast-growing wealth management space and take on the likes of Zerodha, Groww, and PhonePe.

The startup, valued at over $6 Bn, saw its revenue from operations surge 250% to INR 1,400.6 Cr in FY23 from INR 393.5 Cr in FY22. Net loss increased 5% year-on-year to INR 1,347.4 Cr. 

CRED has raised over $800 Mn till date and counts the likes of GIC, Peak XV Partners, Alpha Wave Global, and Tiger Global among its backers.