Browserstack buys back ESOPs worth $50 million

Mobile and app testing platform BrowserStack has bought back employee stock ownership plans (Esops) worth $50 million (about Rs 365 crore), as part of its ongoing effort to aid employees in their wealth creation journey.

This is the second such exercise this year for the San Francisco- and Mumbai-based company, which in June received $200 million led by Bond Capital and Insight Partners at a valuation of $4 billion.

BrowserStack said on Tuesday that over 100 of its employees participated in the buyback exercise.


“The exponential growth witnessed by BrowserStack has been made possible because of the perseverance and dedication of our people,” said co-founder and CEO Ritesh Arora. “We grow when our people grow, and we would like to thank them for playing a significant role in the company's success.”

The company has doubled its headcount to 800 over the last two years.

BrowserStack’s eventual plan is to go in for an Initial Public Offering (IPO), but for now it is aiming to become the largest testing platform in the world with a 50% market share.

BrowserStack was one of the contenders in the Startup of the Year category at the Economic Times Startup Awards 2021.

India’s Software as a Service (SaaS) sector has caught the eye of global investors, with its ‘build in India for the world’ model that has been viewed as highly cost efficient and scalable.

This has led to investors pouring capital into the sector at huge valuations that experts say are in line with those of global SaaS firms.

Last week, Indian SaaS poster child Freshworks debuted on the Nasdaq stock market with a blockbuster IPO in which it raised over $1 billion at a valuation of $10 billion.

Girish Mathrubootham, cofounder and CEO of Freshworks, told ET that over 76% of its employees own stock in the company, with 500 of them becoming millionaires, nearly 70 of whom are under the age of 30.