Home services marketplace Urban Company (formerly called UrbanClap) has announced a stock ownership plan worth Rs 150 crore for its service providers over the next five to seven years.
The platform said it had received the board’s approval for the first tranche worth Rs 75 crore of the stick in the next three to four years.
Urban Company added it will set up a process to grant these stocks, taking into account both the performance of service partners and their longevity on the platform.
“Urban Company’s partner stock ownership plan (PSOP) will help scores of service partners become shareholders of the company, thereby enabling broad-based wealth creation through equity sharing.
This is perhaps the first of its kind plan globally, where gig workers become shareholders of the very platform they work with. This will allow our service partners to benefit from the company’s growth in the coming years,” said Raghav Chandra, Co-Founder of Urban Company.
Founded in 2014 by Abhiraj Singh Bhal, Varun Khaitan and Raghav Chandra, the platform provides on-demand services including beauty and spa at home, cleaning, plumbing, carpentry, appliance repair, painting and others.
Urban Company was valued at close to $1 billion in August 2019, when it had raised $75 million in a round backed by Tiger Global.
Earlier in June, the platform closed a Series F funding round, at $255 million (Rs 1866.7 crore), led by new investors Prosus Ventures, Dragoneer Investment Group and Wellington Management, which had valued the firm at $2.1 billion.
In December Urban Company concluded its fourth and largest employee stock options (ESOP) sale programme worth $7.3 million (around Rs 55 crore).
The platform’s net loss widened to Rs 249.28 crore in 2020-21 (FY21) from Rs 155.18 crore in 2019-20 (FY20) as its employee benefit expenses soared more than 60%.
Employee benefit expenses rose to Rs 226.98 crore in FY21 from 139.49 in FY20, and accounted for nearly half of the company’s total expenses against 33% in the year-ago period, the company’s filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) showed.
