Accel-backed Orange Health announces first ESOP, equity buyback worth $1 mn

Accel-backed Orange Health said on September 7 that the health tech startup would buy back equity and ESOPs (employee stock option ownership plan) worth as much as $1 million (about Rs 8 crore).

Half of the $1 million buyback will constitute ESOPs while the other half would be equity held by its investors. The company is currently backed by investors including Accel, Y Combinator, Bertelsmann India Investments, and General Catalyst, among others.

The Bengaluru-headquartered company, in a statement, said about 25 existing and former employees are eligible to participate in this ESOP buyback and liquidate part of their vested stock options. The two-year-old company said the employees who worked for a minimum of a year were eligible for ESOP buybacks in the round.

The company said it currently has a workforce of over 600 employees including leaders, operators, engineers, and medical professionals. With this buyback, Orange Health said it aims to recognise the contribution of employees in enabling its growth in the last two years and drive wealth creation.

Founded in December 2020 by Dhruv Gupta and Tarun Bhambra, Orange Health is a diagnostic company with certified laboratories, that provides at-home sample collection in 60 minutes and delivers reports in six hours across cities including Bangalore, Gurgaon, Delhi, Noida, and Ghaziabad.

"...All the employees who have qualified for the ESOP buyback scheme are our earliest team members, most of whom joined during the first 12 months of our company's inception when the team size was less than 30 people. They left jobs at prominent healthcare and tech companies, took a bet on us and donned multiple hats during our early days…," said co-founders Gupta and Bhambra.

Orange Health said it has so far provided diagnostic testing services to over a million customers across Bengaluru and National Capital Region (NCR).

The health tech startup said its customers can avail of over 1,000 tests at Orange Health in Bengaluru and the National Capital Region, adding that it is also planning to expand the range of tests available on the platform.

This comes at the back of Orange Health's series B funding round where it raised $25 million earlier this year from Bertelsmann India Investments, General Catalyst, Accel, Y Combinator, Good Capital, and others.

Earlier, the company has previously raised $10 million, with its series A being led by Accel in 2021.