Pine Labs secures $285 mn funding, unicorn firm's valuation tops $3 bn

Company offers merchants payment technology and working capital; it started as a retail solutions player in petroleum.

Pine Labs, which offers merchants payment technology and working capital, has completed a new round of financing of $285 million, said the unicorn fintech company on Monday

The investors included Baron Capital Group, Duro Capital, Marshall Wace, Moore Strategic Ventures and Ward Ferry Management. Existing investors Temasek, Lone Pine Capital and Sunley House Capital also participated in this funding round.

The new investment takes the valuation of the Noida-based company to about $3 billion, up from about $2 billion in a funding round last year in December and $1 billion in early 2020, according to the sources.

Pine Labs said it enabled secondary transactions for its founder, employees and early shareholders. “This is an exciting phase in our journey as we enter newer markets,” said B. Amrish Rau, CEO, Pine Labs. “We excel in enterprise merchant payments and now want to scale new frontiers in the online space as well, at the same time continue to power the credit and commerce needs of our offline merchant partners.”

Established in 1998, Pine Labs has evolved from a petroleum automation retail solutions player to becoming a payments products and services firm for merchants.

Pine Labs serves more than 150,000 merchants across Asia and the Middle East. It recently launched its popular Buy Now, Pay Later proposition in Malaysia and has plans to take its integrated Pay Later instalment solution to newer markets in Southeast Asia. In April 2021, Pine Labs also announced the acquisition of Fave, Southeast Asia’s fast-growing consumer fintech platform.

“We are very excited to be a part of the technological transformation that Pine Labs is driving on the ground in payments,” said Amit Rajpal, CEO and portfolio manager of Marshall Wace Asia. “We are also excited about an Indian business being able to drive regional and potentially global adoption of its Intellectual Property and this represents significant optionality for the future.”