With a fat pay cheque of Rs 100 crore per annum each, Nithin and Nikhil Kamath, the brothers who co-founded Bengaluru-based fintech unicorn Zerodha will become the highest paid co-founders across the startup ecosystem in India, according to an exclusive report by Entrackr.

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Nithin’s wife Seema Patil, who has been elevated as a whole time director of the company, will also receive an annual salary of around the same amount.

Zerodha, founded in August 2010, scaled up to over Rs 1,000 crore revenue and Rs 442 crore profit by FY20, a good chunk of which will be taken back home by the three, regulatory filings show, the Entrackr report said.

Zerodha’s board has passed a special resolution, approving a remuneration of up to Rs 100 crore per annum each to Nikhil, Nithin and Seema. The three will get a basic salary of Rs 4.17 crore per month each, along with perquisites and other allowances, adding up to a total of around Rs 100 crore annually.

Besides Seema, Madhav Kota Subramanya has also been appointed as a whole-time director of Zerodha for five years from May 10, and his remuneration will be Rs 2 crore per annum.

Meanwhile, Kamath brothers and Seema also run Rainmatter Foundation, which supports individuals and organisations working on climate change issues. The foundation had committed a $100 million fund.

Among the other highly paid start-up founders, CarTrade’s Vinay Sanghi, Zomato’s Deepinder Goyal, Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Dream11’s Harsh Jain, and InCred’s Bhupinder Singh took a salary anywhere between Rs 3 crore and Rs 6 crore in FY20.

According to Fintrackr, Zerodha had posted over 15 percent growth in its revenue from Rs 950 crore in FY19 to Rs 1,093.64 crore in FY20.

Experts attribute this to the COVID-19-induced lockdowns, which forced new retail investors to flock to the share market through online brokerages like Zerodha. As of January, Zerodha was the biggest share brokerage firm in India with an active client base of over 3.14 million, according to National Stock Exchange data.

The company also bought back stock options worth Rs 65 crore from around 700 of its employees last June.

(Edited by : Shoma)