Nuclei, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform, that enables enterprises to engage with their customers digitally, announced its first share buyback on Tuesday, which will be facilitated by Trica Equity, a business entity of the dealmaking platform LetsVenture, Nuclei said in a press statement.
The company said that the objective of the share buyback is to give employees an opportunity to sell their stock appreciation right (SAR) holdings, and also to help it distribute the wealth it generated among all its shareholders. Nuclei, that has been bootstrapped since its inception and has never raised any external funding, said that all its 102 current employees along with previous employees will be eligible for the buyback, the statement said.
The company was founded in 2018, by Ankur Joshi, an IIT Bombay alumnus. Before Nuclei, Joshi was Chief of Staff at Tapzo. Joshi has founded two companies before Nuclei--Blaez, a business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce platform and RushHrs, a quick-service restaurants chain, according to his LinkedIn profile. Joshi was an associate with Deutsche Bank before he ventured into entrepreneurship.
“Giving a stake to the entire team has helped us to build a strong sense of ownership which we see translating to strong business outcomes for our global clients. We are proud to say that we did our first buyback within 3 years of inception and we will continue to do more buybacks regularly,” said Joshi.
Nuclei is a plug and play merchant marketplace that provides consumer tech architecture to banks to enable them to go live with any third-party service or product. The company is currently working with more than 18 banks across Asia including the State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Canara Bank, Bank of Baroda, RAKBank, DBS Bank among others, Nuclei said.
The company is betting on digitisation which has picked up pace since the pandemic. Enterprises are focusing a lot on providing more value-added services to their customers and are looking to engage them more deeply on their mobile applications, the company said.
The company offers three products named Arise, Marketplace and Card Stack. Arise is a platform that enables to bundle services with various third-party products and services. The company offers Arise as a subscription product to its customers.
Marketplace enables customers to order food and grocery, book travel tickets, pay bills and more using the company’s mobile application. Meanwhile, Card Stack enables banks to engage with their customers deeply by offering a range of digital functionalities built around credit, debit, or pre-paid card instruments, the statement said.
ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) buybacks have been a hit among new-age technology companies of late. VCCircle last week had reported that startups are unveiling new ESOP structures to woo and retain talent.
“ESOP buybacks have long been part of employee welfare across organizations. While a typical buyback usually takes about five to seven years post inception of a company, ESOP buybacks are increasingly being leveraged by new-age entrepreneurs and companies to better nurture and retain talent,” said Sanjay Jha, Co-founder, Chief Technology Officer, Trica Equity.
