Equity Management Startup Rulezero Secures Funds From Valiant Capital, Blume Founders Fund

Equity management startup Rulezero has raised $2.5 Mn in a seed round of funding from US fintech fund The Treasury, employees of Valiant Capital, YourNest Venture Capital, Blume Founders Fund and others. 

Founded in 2019 by Satish Mugulavalli and Srinivas Katta, Bengaluru-based Rulezero offers the Hissa platform that manages ownership data of companies, automates share issuance processes and ESOPs, provides mechanisms to track and certify cap table and manage transactions.

Srinivas Katta said, “We are onboarding early stage startups and unicorns at a rapid pace and are pleased to welcome the new investors to the company. With the current pace of funding in the country, Rulezero has a larger pool of prospective customers.

The startup will use the fresh funds to expand the team, enhance product offerings and scale customer deployment. 

Earlier this week, captable and ESOP management SaaS startup Qapita raised $15 Mn in Series A funding. Similarly, deal syndication platform LetsVenture launched a new business entity named trica which is a single platform for equity management and private market investments. The platform secured $3 Mn in seed funding from Accel, LC Nueva AIF and Secocha Ventures among others. 

As more companies are initiating ESOP buyback programs to make ESOPs more attractive to employees, ESOP management platforms have become a hot ticket investment. 

Startups like Flipkart, Unacademy, Zerodha and Razorpay have initiated ESOP buybacks to invigorate the faith of employees in company stock options.

“The sign of a maturing ecosystem is greater transparency, which Hissa will certainly provide”, said Sunil Goyal, Managing Director of YourVest Venture Capital, one of the investors. 

According to an EY report, the Indian private equity and venture capital market grew at a CAGR of 19% from $8.4 Bn to $47.6 Bn between 2011 and 2020.