Pocket FM completes its first ESOP buyback worth $8.3 million

Audio entertainment platform Pocket FM announced the completion of its first Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) buyback worth $8.3 million on April 1. The buyback witnessed participation from numerous former and current employees, the company disclosed without providing further details.

"This emphasises our continued commitment to acknowledging the efforts of our teams, and we're pleased that despite the challenging economic conditions, we remain unwavering in offering opportunities for wealth creation and fostering a culture of growth within Pocket FM," co-founder Rohan Nayak said.

The announcement follows Pocket FM's recent achievement of raising $103 million in Series D funding, valuing the company at $750 million in March.

In recent years, many modern companies like PhonePe and Swiggy have been offering ESOPs to employees and buying them back at attractive prices. This trend helps employees, particularly those who joined the company early on, build wealth over time.

Pocket FM, established in 2018 by Nayak, Prateek Dixit, and Nishanth Srinivas, boasts a vast library of content, including over 100,000 hours of diverse audio content. This includes over 2,000 exclusive audio series and a staggering collection of more than 400,000 episodes. The content covers a wide range of genres, including romance, drama, thriller, fantasy, and science fiction, catering to audiences in both English and Hindi, as well as various Indian languages such as Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali, Kannada, and Marathi.

Pocket FM provides users with free access to a limited number of episodes every 24 hours. To unlock additional content, users have the option to purchase virtual coins, similar to popular mobile gaming models.

As of December, Pocket FM achieved an annualized revenue rate (ARR) of $150 million globally, accomplished in less than two years. This revenue is growing at a remarkable rate of 57 percent quarterly. Notably, over $100 million of this revenue came from the United States alone, according to Nayak's statement last month.

In February, Pocket FM expanded its offerings by launching Pocket Novel, an online platform for reading novels. This move aims to diversify the company's content offerings into other categories and formats.

To support this initiative, the Bengaluru-based startup has allocated a $40 million investment. Pocket FM aims to achieve a global annual revenue rate (ARR) of $100 million by 2025 through this novel reading platform and its other services.