Singapore-based startup, Pine Labs that offers merchant payments solutions, today announced an investment round of over $600 million (Rs 4,459 crore) 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).
The company valued at $3 billion, is likely to come out with an initial public offering (IPO) within 18 months, Bloomberg reported. The fintech industry in India is growing at about 50 percent annual rate and Southeast Asia is following closely behind, Rau said, according to the financial daily. Pine Labs is growing at about a 60 percent annually, he said.
Pine Labs is is backed by Sequoia Capital, Temasek Holdings, Actis, PayPal and Mastercard amongst other leading global investors.
B Amrish Rau, CEO, said, “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 percent over the last year. We are excited to bring on board a marquee set of new investors in this round.”
Shailendra Singh, MD, Sequoia Capital said, “Pine Labs now serves hundreds of thousands of merchants across payments acceptance on cards and UPI processing tens of billions of payment volume; the company also has the market leading PayLater offering with $3B in annualized PayLater transactions. 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,” he said.
Pine Labs offers a range of customized offerings for in-store and doorstep Payments, Pay Later 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.
