India: Tech firm valued at $100 million gives away 33 per cent ownership to staff

In an unprecedented move, Ideas2IT, an India-headquartered tech firm has announced that 33% of the $100 million company's ownership would be transferred to its employees. Of the 33% stake in the company, 5% would be given to 40 select employees who have been with the firm since its inception (in 2009) and the rest would be distributed to the remaining 700 personnel. In addition to this, the firm is also giving away 50 cars to 50 employees, who have served with them for more than five years.

"Having started off in 2009, we've grown to a $100 million firm and we wanted to share the fruits of this with our employees.This is part of our wealth-sharing initiative. We have a total of 750 employees spread across India, US and Mexico. Employees spend some 30-40 per cent of their waking hours for the company. We believe in Lofty goals and Happy journey. This idea is poised to transform the employees working experience and forge a strong collaborative corporate culture, emotional attachment with the company" Murali Vivekanandan, Founder, Ideas2IT told WION.

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According to the company, this 'Employee Ownership Programme' would make the employees valued stakeholders, thereby aligning their interests directly with the company's long-term success. "We are now valued at $100 million and we have a strategy to triple this in a span of four years" said Murali Vivekanandan, who calls himself a Bay Area techie, who has worked at Sun, Oracle, and Google, among others, before starting the custom software engineering firm Ideas2IT. Now based in the US, he shuttles between Chennai, India and Mexico.

Within the price range of Rs. 8-15 lakhs, we've allowed employees to pick vehicles of their choice from the Maruti Suzuki lineup and these vehicles would be completely registered in the employee's name, there's no strings attached whatsoever and there's no expenditure for the employees, say company officials.According to the firm, they've given away only 50 cars this time, as they had alreadygiven away 100 cars to employees who had then completed five years, as of 2022.

"When we initially gave away as many cars, people doubted whether we could sustain this. However, now we've gone much beyond cars and given away 33 per cent of the firm's ownership to our staff," says Gayathri Vivekanandan, CEO, Ideas2IT.

Queried about how the company manages to carry out such initiatives, amid uncertain market conditions and fluctuations, Murali tells WION that their firm has many Fortune 500 clients who span across sectors, therefore, ensuring a steady growth. In recent years, we've been growing at 30 per cent and some sectors that we cater to have remained consistent or steady-growing.

He adds that his firm does not go after IITians or the best graduates from top-tier engineering colleges. Instead, they recruit those from modest backgrounds and lesser-known colleges. "90 per cent of our employees are from tier-2 or tier 3 Indian cities. We mainly look for freshers and those who are sharp and quick-to-grasp. We don't deeply analyze their programming ability or knowledge, we just want those who learn on the job and deliver,"he says.

However, getting into this firm is not easy, as their recruitment process is very stringent. Officials say that they screen more than 10,000 students and end up picking barely 50 of them.