IPO-Bound PharmEasy Creates ESOP Pool Worth INR 591 Cr For Employees & Founders

IPO-bound epharmacy company PharmEasy has created an ESOP pool for its five founders and whole-time directors – Dharmil Sheth, Harsh Parekh, Hardik Dedhia, and Daval Shah. 

As per the regulatory filings, PharmEasy’s parent API Holdings has allotted 3,99,935 employee stock options  which can be converted into equity shares at 1:1 ratio.

Upon further calculation, if converted into equity shares at the current price, the total employee stock options will be worth INR 236 Cr, which the company is offering at INR 40 lakh.

The startup is also creating an ESOP pool for its employees with 603,103 employee stock options. The ESOP on converting will be worth INR 355 Cr. 

Startups planning for IPOs have increased the ESOP pool for their employees. Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led Paytm had increased its employee stock option plan (ESOP) pool from a little over 24 Mn to 61 Mn — a nearly 2.5x rise. 

Another ecommerce platform Snapdeal which is yet to file its DRHP, has also increased its ESOP pool by 151% from the existing 1,98,890 options to 5,00,000 options. 

The development comes on the heels of PharmEasy raising $350 Mn from Singapore’s Amansa Capital, Blackstone-backed ApaH Capital, Janus Henderson, Orbimed, Steadview Capital, and ADQ. The investment could be seen as a pre-IPO round that the startup was in talks to raise for sometime now before filing its draft red herring prospectus.

Founded in 2015 by Sheth and Shah, PharmEasy merged with its investor entity, Ascent Health, to form API Holdings in 2019 and onboarded three cofounders – Siddharth Shah, Hardik Dedhia, and Harsh Parekh.

The startup claims to connect over 60K brick-and-mortar pharmacies and more than 4K doctors in 16K+ pin codes across India. The startup provides SaaS procurement solutions, delivery and logistics support, and credit solutions to pharmacies.

The startup claims to have served over 20 Mn patients since inception.

Multiple media reports suggest that PharmEasy is likely to file its prospectus which includes information about its IPO offer with the market regulator by the end of this month. The startup is eyeing a $1 Bn IPO, an amount similar to what hospitality unicorn OYO is trying to raise from the public market. 

In September, the startup appointed five independent directors – Vineeta Rai, Subramanian Somasundaram, Dr Jaydeep Tank, Ramakant Sharma and Deepak Vaidya.

Last month, PharmEasy acquired a majority stake in healthcare supply chain startup Aknamed for INR 307 Cr. Earlier this year, it also acquired 66% stake in diagnostic chain Thyrocare for INC 4,546 Cr.