For all eligible current and former employees with vested stocks, Meesho, a social commerce platform is undertaking a $5.5 million ESOP buyback. The platform recently raised $570 million in a funding round led by B Capital Group and Fidelity Management. Moreover, it repurchased employee stock ownership plans worth $6 million in two previous rounds with across-the-board participation.

“We continue to see meteoric progress not only as a business but also in our efforts to democratise internet commerce for everyone,” Vidit Aatrey, founder and chief executive officer at Meesho said in a statement. “As we hire across the board and scale our tech and product talent by 2.5X, ESOPs will give employees high ownership, while providing more opportunities for wealth creation.”

Several consumer internet startups have recently undertaken ESOP buybacks worth a cumulative $545.8 million. These firms include Zomato, Razorpay, Zetwerks, PhonePe, Cred, Acko, Swiggy, Unacademy, Moglix, Zerodha, Udaan, Paytm and Licious.

Industry stakeholders have previously told that the abundance of ESOP buyback programmes has employees asking to be included in the pool upfront, even if the cash in hand is less, to begin with.

At a valuation of $4.9 billion, Google is in talks to invest in Meesho.