Fintech firm Pine Labs closes $600 mn fundraise, eyes IPO in 18 months

Pine Labs, one of Asia’s leading merchant commerce platforms, has closed a $600 million fundraising round, with the entry of new investors Fidelity Management & Research Company, funds managed by BlackRock, Ishana, Tree Line, a fund advised by Neuberger Berman Investment Advisers LLC. IIFL AMC via its ‘Late-Stage Tech Fund’ and Kotak are also participating in this investment round, which is subject to approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). With the current close, the valuation of the firm stands at $3 billion.

Pine Labs said it continues to be well-financed and has been EBITDA profitable for several years. The company is backed by Sequoia Capital, Temasek Holdings, Actis, PayPal and Mastercard amongst other leading global investors. The new investment comes at a time when it is planning an initial public offering (IPO) within the next 18 months.

“Over the last year, Pine Labs has made significant progress in its offline to online strategy in India and the direct-to-consumer play in Southeast Asia. Our full-stack approach to payments and merchant commerce has allowed us to grow in-month merchant partnerships by nearly 100 per cent over the last year,” said B Amrish Rau, CEO, Pine Labs. “We are excited to bring on board a marquee set of new investors in this round and appreciate the confidence they have placed on the Pine Labs business model and our growth momentum.”

Pine Labs offers a range of customised offerings for in-store and doorstep payments, PayLater at the point of sale, prepaid issuance and online payments to large, mid-market and small retailers. The company has also beefed-up investment on the consumer side of the business with the acquisition of Fave in April 2021. Over 6 million consumers across over 40,000 merchant establishments now have access to the Fave app.

Shailendra Singh, managing director, Sequoia Capital, said, Pine Labs has rapidly transformed from a single product company allowing retail acceptance of payments to a broader payments platform. The company now serves hundreds of thousands of merchants across payments acceptance on cards and unified payments interface, processing tens of billions of payments. The company also has the market leading PayLater offering with  about $3 billion  in annualised PayLater transactions. Singh said, through its acquisitions of QwikCilver and Fave, Pine Labs now has the market leading pre-paid platform in this region as well as the top consumer loyalty product in this market. 

“With leadership across multiple categories, the company is very well positioned to help drive immense value to its merchant partners in India and across other SEA markets,” said Singh.