Given the growth path of IndiaMart, investors with a longer-term view can accumulate the stock at lower levels
IndiaMart Intermesh Ltd (IndiaMart; CMP: Rs 4,403; Market capitalisation: Rs 13,457 crore) has corrected by more than 50 percent from its 52-week high in the month of October 2021. In March 2021, IndiaMart had raised Rs 1,070 crore through the QIP route at Rs 8,615 per share. The correction in stock price can be partly due to the higher valuation and the investment in various fintech- and SaaS (software as a service)-based companies.
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The ESOP buyback has been rolled out to 45 eligible current and ex-employees, as part of the closure of Fleetx’s Series B funding led by IndiaMart, with existing investors India Quotient and BEENEXT also participating, according to a statement.
Fleetx.io, an intelligent freight visibility and fleet management platform, has announced that it has facilitated ESOPs for a significant number of its employees as part of the recent fund raise.
The liquidity transaction for the same has totalled approximately Rs 3.9 crore.
The ESOP buyback has been rolled out to 45 eligible current and ex-employees, as part of the closure of Fleetx’s Series B funding led by IndiaMart, with existing investors India Quotient and BEENEXT also participating, according to a statement.
Vineet Sharma, Co-Founder and CEO, Fleetx.io, said, “Fleetx’s growth is a reflection of our people and their contribution; it wouldn’t have been possible without our people to reach where we are today. ESOPs liquidity is our way to thank them for their continuous effort and the belief they have in us. We are a great believer of ESOPs and continue to create a culture of responsibility with rewards along with significant financial upside which can’t be achieved with just salary.”
“We are looking to double down on our product and technology and scale our GTM capabilities. While we continue to focus and scale in the Indian market, we are evaluating some of the geographies outside India as well. We believe that our product can compete globally even today, and it’s just about cracking the GTM with the right strategy and great people,” added Sharma.
Founded in 2017 by IIT, NIT and Purdue University graduates, Vineet Sharma and his co-founders Abhay Jeet Gupta, Udbhav Rai, Parveen Kataria and Vishal Misra, Fleetx offers a suite of IoT and software-based products to help industries digitise their logistics operations and helps them improve safety, efficiency and sustainability of their vehicles and operations.
Dinesh Agarwal, Founder and CEO, IndiaMart, believes that digitisation and significant capital investments in the last two decades have contributed towards the exponential rise of the Indian startup ecosystem
The Economic Survey 2021-22, released last month, showed that India had become the world’s third largest-startup ecosystem after the US and China. It notes that the government in that past year recognised over 14,000 new startups compared to 733 in 2016-17. Moreover, India saw a record 44 startups turning unicorns in 2021 and just two months into the new year, India has already registered ten unicorns. What explains this exponential growth of India’s startup ecosystem?
Dinesh Agarwal, Founder and CEO, India Mart, says that digitisation and significant capital investments in the last two decades have resulted in this dramatic growth of the Indian startup ecosystem.
“Twenty years ago, the whole venture capital or private equity capital or risk capital which doesn’t come with a debt mindset was not available. The whole concept of valuation and exits was probably not there. So, people were building the slow growth model of cash flow-based business approval. Secondly, the number of internet users jumped significantly due to the IT penetration, and in accordance with that, the number of mobile users went up. This gave a lot of opportunities to write software and start businesses. These two, I believe, have propelled the whole startup ecosystem in India to a great extent,” says Aggarwal.
Watch the complete video here to listen to Aggarwal elaborating on the digitisation aspect, what it means to be an entrepreneur, why people aspire to become an entrepreneur and whether founders should have a ‘Plan B?’
In order to build a flexible and supportive working environment for its employees, IndiaMART becomes the first Indian organization to move to a weekly salary pay disbursement regime. In line with the evolving flexi work culture & the changing motivational needs of the employees, the organization has taken this revolutionary step to enrich them with stability, purpose, and growth.
The consistent flow of money is essential to the well-being of any individual. We all know that employees receiving their salaries on time is probably more important than the rest of the HR initiatives combined. This is especially relevant in light of the current pandemic where millennia workers, who in many instances, live on their own away from home, struggle financially with their once-a-month pay-checks and are deeply impacted by the profound lack of flexibility in their payrolls. Now more than ever before, employees value experiences, financial freedom, a flexible work culture, and a work-life balance more than a simple collection of assets.
Weekly Payouts are, therefore, a big step in the direction of promoting employee wellness. Weekly payouts are already common in mature economies like New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong and the U.S. Their benefits have been tested out and proven over many years. Taking into account the benefits to the employees, their preferences as well as the changing dynamics of the global economy, IndiaMart has taken another first initiative to disburse the salaries on weekly basis rather than monthly.
Paying employees on weekly basis makes it easier for them to meet their real-time fiscal obligations. Not to mention how the excitement of the payday increases fourfold with the weekly payout, making employees more satisfied, happier, and, consequently, more motivated towards their purpose in the organization. Weekly Payout System, goes a big way in helping employees alleviate their financial hardships and regain control of their lives – positioning them for success in every aspect.
Speaking of his decision to introduce weekly payout, a first for any organization in the country, Dinesh Gulati, COO of IndiaMart has said, “Amidst the rapidly evolving Flexi work culture, instant gratification is what every employee expects. We believe weekly payouts will be appreciated by one and all across the organization. We had started taking steps in this direction many years back when we migrated to weekly incentive payouts for many roles across the organizations.”
IndiaMART has always been at the forefront of enhancing employee satisfaction. With the advent of the pandemic, IndiaMART was one of the first organizations to implement complete work from home and integrate relevant processes for the smooth operation of the business ensuring the safety of both employees and customers.
The company also noticed the limitations on opportunities available and the skill gap that was deepening because of the pandemic. So, for upskilling and providing financial assistance programs to their workforce throughout the pandemic, the company introduced programs like iLeaps, iBuds, and Own your Desktop that enabled IndiaMART employees to work efficiently from their homes by extending to them the resources to own their office laptops and providing discounted rates on online courses to expand their horizons.
Beyond their own workforce too, over the past two years, IndiaMART has taken several steps to reach the underserved segments of the workforce through their Online Associate program, onboarding over 3500 freelancers including persons with disabilities, women who were trying to return after career breaks and aspirants from remote locations.
Their new step is just another move in the same direction.
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