Reliance acquires Clovia 👒, CoinSwitch's Esop buyback 👜, Boat's pre-IPO plans ⛵
Reliance buys 89% stake in Clovia, CoinSwitch completes first Esop buyback, Boat plans to build a house of brands, What is ESOP?, Funding Deals & more.
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Reliance buys 89% stake in Clovia for ₹950 crore👒
Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL) on Sunday said it has acquired an 89% stake for ₹950 crores in Purple Panda Fashions Pvt. Ltd, which owns women's innerwear and loungewear brand Clovia.
The Clovia deal is the latest move by RRVL to gain a stronger foothold in the organized fashion market and it follows its investments in a slew of homegrown labels including Abraham & Thakore and Anamika Khanna. RRVL also owns women's innerwear brands Zivame and Amante.
x“Reliance has always been at the forefront of enhancing choices and offering the best value proposition to consumers. We are pleased to add style, quality, and design-led intimate wear brand ‘Clovia’ to our portfolio," said Isha Ambani, director, RRVL.
Clovia was launched in 2013 by Pankaj Vermani, Neha Kant, and Suman Choudhary. Its offerings include over 3,500 product styles. Clovia has an in-house design team and follows an asset-light outsourced production model.
CoinSwitch completes first Esop buyback💫
Crypto unicorn CoinSwitch Kuber has completed its first-ever buyback of employee stock ownership plan (Esop). The round, worth about ₹19 crores ($2.5 million), was funded through “a mix of internal and external resources", Ashish Singhal, co-founder and chief executive, CoinSwitch said in an interview.
The company turned a unicorn last September following a $260 million Series C funding round from American venture capital firms Coinbase Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz.
CoinSwitch’s user-base jumped from one to 15 million in one year through January 2022. CoinSwitch’s workforce grew from 20 to 500 employees in the last two years, so it’s likely that Esops given to most of the employees are yet to vest.
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What is Esop?
Startups allocate Esops (employee stock ownership plan) to employees as part of their salaries either at the time of hiring or during appraisals. These shares have a vesting period, before which employees are not allowed to sell their holdings. When the vesting period is over, the company has a choice to facilitate a buyback option and employees can choose to sell their shares at the time.
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Boat sets up M&A arm for ‘house of brands’ play⛵
Direct-to-consumer (D2C) consumer electronics firm Boat Lifestyle has set up a mergers and acquisitions arm for domestic and overseas acquisitions in the consumer tech space. It plans to build a house of brands similar to those of other unicorn startups such as GoodGlamm Group & Mensa Brands ahead of its proposed public listing.
According to market intelligence firm IDC, Boat had a 48% share by volume in the branded earwear category and 23% in the wearables watch market for December 2021.
Boat’s acquisitions so far include Tagg smartwatches and gaming accessories brand RedGear. Its own brands include personal care accessories label Misfit and mass-priced headsets brand Defy. And two months ago, the company acquired Singapore-based KaHa, a tech product development company.
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