Zomato’s Deepinder Goyal to donate Rs 700 crore ESOPs to Future Foundation

Online food delivery giant Zomato’s founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal will donate all his employee stock option plan (ESOP) proceeds worth Rs 700 crore to Zomato Future Foundation, according to an internal letter sent by Goyal to Zomato’s employees. This is one of the various other measures that the food tech company is taking to control the attrition of the delivery executives.

Also Read | Reliance Q4 Results: Profit rises 22% to Rs 16,203 crore, revenue grows 36%

“Right before we went public, I was granted some ESOPs by our investors/ board, basis my past performance and some of these ESOPs vested last month because there’s a minimum one-year vesting required as per law,” Goyal said in the letter.

“At the average share price over the last month, these ESOPs are worth $90m or Rs 700 crore. I am donating all the proceeds from these ESOPs (net of taxes) towards the Zomato Future Foundation. The ZFF will cover the education of up to two children of all Zomato delivery partners, up to Rs 50,000 per child per annum on actual (above a certain service quality benchmark) who have been on our fleet for more than five years,” he added.

Also Read | LIC IPO live updates: Largest public issue opens for subscription

Goyal further said that the amount will go up to Rs 1 lakh per child per annum if the delivery partner completes 10 years with Zomato. However, the service thresholds for the women delivery partners will be lower and ZFF will introduce ‘prize money’ for girl children if a girl completes 12th grade and her graduation.

In addition to this, the Zomato Future Foundation will provide higher education scholarships for children with higher performance and potential. In the case of the company’s delivery partners who meet with “unfortunate circumstances such as accidents, while on the job”, educational and livelihood support for the families will be provided irrespective of the service tenure, Goyal said.

Also Read | Hungary retracts support from EU sanctions targetting Russian oil exports

ZFF will also open to donations for other Zomato employees and the company is exploring other fundraising opportunities for the foundation. It will also set up an independent governance board for Zomato Future Foundation.

Also Read | ‘Right to nap’: Indian start-up announces 30 min official nap time at work

Goyal said that 100% of the proceeds of this “ESOP vesting cycle” are committed towards ZZ and to reap the most benefits and protect the interests of shareholders, he will not liquidate all these shares immediately, but over the next few years.