Zomato founder donates Rs 700 crore worth ESOPs; benefits kids of delivery partners [details]

A week ago, Zomato was in the headlines slashing half of investors' wealth as shares plunged 50% in 2022. Founder and CEO of the food tech major Deepinder Goyal's gesture to curb the attrition of the delivery executives has painted some positive light on Zomato. Goyal, in an internal communication addressed to the employees, said that he will be donating all of his employee stock option plan (ESOP) proceeds to Zomato Future Foundation. The total donation totals to Rs 700 crore or $90 million.

"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," Goyal added.

How the donation benefits kids of delivery execs

The Zomato Future Foundation will be covering the education cost of up to two children of all Zomato delivery partners with support of up to Rs 50,000 per child. By this calculation, each family would get Rs 1 lakh towards the education of their children.

For the delivery execs to be eligible for this, they need to have been completed over 5 years with Zomato. However, if any delivery exec has completed over 10 years, the amount for each child goes up to Rs 1 lakh.

There are special benefits for women delivery partners. The service threshold will be lower for them, although the company did not announce how many years. But it did say there will be a prize money for girls upon completing their Class 12 exams and graduation exams. Special programs will also be announced for girl children. Children with good performance will also be given more rewards.

Zomato Future Foundation is considerate towards unfortunate incidents. For instance, agents who met with an accident will be covered regardless of their tenure.

When Housing CEO challenged Zomato, OLA CEOs

Back in 2015, Housing.com CEO Rahul Yadav donated his share holdings worth Rs 150-200 crore to the company's employees while challenging his fellow IIT alumnus Zomato and Ola CEOs to return half of their stakes. At the time, Goyal's response was "Aww, so cute."