Pine Labs raises $50 mn from Vitruvian, taking total to $920 mn in 8 months

Merchant commerce platform got $150 million from Alpha Wave Global in February and $20 million from SBI in January.

Merchant commerce platform Pine Labs has got a new investment of $50 million from London-based Vitruvian Partners, raising $920 million in the last eight months. Total investments include a $150-million cheque from Alpha Wave Global in February at a valuation of $5 billion.

“We aim to further strengthen our recent foray in online payments via Plural and take our Buy Now Pay Later offering to new markets through strategic collaborations. We welcome Vitruvian Partners in this journey and thank them for the trust shown in us,” said B Amrish Rau, chief executive officer at Pine Labs.

Pine Labs got $20 million as investment from State Bank of India in January. Pine Labs, which is backed by Sequoia Capital, Temasek Holdings, Actis, PayPal and Mastercard among other leading global investors, competes with other fintech companies such as BharatPe, Mswipe, Paytm and Razorpay.

In July 2021, Pine Labs had raised a round of $600 million from a marquee set of new investors at a $3 billion valuation and later followed it up with a $100-million fundraise from US-based Invesco Developing Markets Fund.

In addition to augmenting its merchant commerce offerings at the offline point-of-sale, Pine Labs is now looking to invest in scaling Plural, its newly launched brand of online payment products and emerge as an omnichannel partner of choice for merchants.

It is also expanding its Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) business across India and Southeast Asia. The company entered the consumer payment space with its April 2021 acquisition of Fave, a SE Asian consumer fintech platform, and has acquired a sizable presence in the Gift, Prepaid and Stored Value segment through its 2019 acquisition of Qwikcilver.

In March, the company launched ‘Mastercard Installments with Pine Labs’ program with Mastercard and DBS Bank to enable the bank’s two million customers in Singapore, Indonesia, and Hong Kong SAR with Pay Later installment purchase options at the point of sale.

“Our investment in Pine Labs follows several investments we have made into the digital payments space, and we’re excited to partner with the management team as they continue to drive digital transformation within the rapidly growing Indian payments market. We were impressed by the versatility of the omnichannel payments platform, as well as the expanding geographic footprint.” said Peter Read, Partner at Vitruvian Partners.