The Bengaluru-based travel fintech has rolled out its first-ever ESOP buyback, worth Rs 20 crore, giving eligible employees the option to sell up to 10% of their vested stock for cash. There is no need to wait for a public listing or an acquisition, the payout happens now, directly, while they are still part of the company.
The buyback lands just two months after Scapia closed a $63 million Series C funding round in May 2026, and about a year after it had raised $40 million in a Series B round in April 2025. Founder and CEO Anil Goteti called the move a way of thanking the team that helped build something new from scratch, and said he hopes it will not be a one-time gesture.
Scapia built its name on co-branded travel credit cards, issued in partnership with Federal Bank and BOBCARD, wrapped in a rewards system called Scapia Coins that turns everyday spending into travel benefits. It keeps the actual lending with its banking partners and focuses instead on owning the app, the rewards layer, and the customer relationship, an asset-light approach that has let it scale fast since launching in January 2022.
This buyback also places Scapia alongside a broader group of Indian startups, including CoinDCX, Unacademy, and Atlys, that have used similar programmes this year to hold on to talent in a market where good people rarely stay unrewarded for long. For the employees who joined Scapia in its early, uncertain days, this is the clearest sign yet that the risk they took is starting to be worth it.
Filed by
Startup Unplugged
