Treelife Resources

Most Indian founders treat an employee stock option plan as an HR decision: draft a scheme, get a lawyer to glance at it, issue letters, move on. It is not. An ESOP is a regulated equity instrument under the Companies Act, 2013, with its own board and shareholder approval sequence,…

When you resign from a company that granted you ESOPs, two clocks start running at once: your notice period, and a separate, usually much shorter, exercise window for any options that have already vested. A meaningful share of employee ESOP value across India’s funded startups sits exactly at this decision…

Employee stock option plans have gone from a listed-company perk to the standard equity instrument for Indian startups raising past seed. Every grant, every exercise and every buyback under that scheme sits on a number that a law somewhere requires to be independently valued. That number changes depending on whether…

Every ESOP scheme eventually has to deal with options that will not be exercised. An employee resigns before the cliff. A director is terminated for cause. A board decides to cash out a departing co-founder’s vested grant. An acquirer wants a clean cap table before closing. Each of these events…

An ESOP pool is the block of company equity set aside for employee stock options before a single option is granted. For most Indian startups it becomes a live issue when a term sheet lands and the investor conditions the round on a pool being created upfront. Founders who understand…

Employee stock option plans have gone from a listed-company perk to the standard equity instrument for Indian startups raising past seed. Every grant, every exercise and every buyback under that scheme sits on a number that a law somewhere requires to be independently valued. That number changes depending on whether…

A drone manufacturer or operator in India does not register once. The business itself is registered with the Registrar of Companies, the entity is registered with DGCA on the DigitalSky platform, every individual drone gets its own Unique Identification Number, and commercial operations need a separate operator permit. Treat any…

Incorporation gives a foreign-owned Indian subsidiary its Certificate of Incorporation, CIN, PAN and TAN, usually within two to three weeks. It does not give the subsidiary a functioning bank account, and that account is what actually lets the business receive capital, pay vendors and run payroll. Indian banks apply enhanced…

Contract labour license registration in India no longer runs through the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970. That Act stood repealed and folded into the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 (OSH Code) when the Code came into force on 21 November 2025, with the Central Rules…

Setting up EV manufacturing in India in 2026 means running two parallel tracks at once: a standard industrial setup track (entity, land, factory license, environmental clearance, labour compliance) and an EV-specific track (battery safety certification, ARAI or iCAT homologation, PLI scheme eligibility, and Battery Waste Management EPR registration). Installed EV…

SEBI issued its updated Master Circular for Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) on 03 June 2026, consolidating every circular, clarification, and regulatory change issued under the SEBI (Alternative Investment Funds) Regulations, 2012 up to 31 May 2026. The document runs 153 pages across 25 chapters and supersedes the previous Master Circular…

The Reserve Bank of India held its benchmark repo rate steady at 5.25% at the June 2026 Monetary Policy Committee meeting, unanimously, under Governor Sanjay Malhotra. This is the third meeting in a row that the rate has stayed put, following a run of 150 basis point cuts between February…

India’s Cabinet approved an amendment to Press Note 3 (PN3) of 2020 in March 2026, and it is generating significant attention across the investment and startup community. Headlines have rushed to label it a sweeping FDI liberalisation. The reality is considerably more targeted. This report breaks down exactly what changed,…

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) recently announced a major overhaul to the regulatory framework for Angel Funds under the Alternative Investment Funds (AIF) Regulations, 2012. This new framework, introduced in 2025, aims to enhance transparency, improve operational clarity, and encourage investor participation. In this article, we’ll explore…

In a significant move to invigorate India’s startup ecosystem, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), during its board meeting on June 19, 2025, approved substantial changes to the Angel Fund Framework. These revisions are designed to unlock more capital for early-stage companies while simultaneously ensuring enhanced investor suitability…