Digital payments service provider Pine Labs has raised $315 million in the capital as part of its ongoing fundraise and closed its current funding round at $600 million, with the entry of new investors Fidelity Management & Research Company, funds managed by BlackRock, Ishana, Tree Line, and 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 SEBI, reported Business Standard.
With the current close, the valuation of the firm stands at $3 billion. The round makes Pine Labs one of the highest-valued and most well-capitalized fintech companies in India, behind IPO-bound Paytm and Walmart-backed PhonePe.
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 percent over the last year,” said B Amrish Rau, CEO, Pine Labs.
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The company, which announced the acquisition of loyalty startup Fave in April, continues to scout for new acquisitions for its merchant business. The Fave acquisition allowed Pine Labs to enter the consumer payments segment as it looks to offer UPI-based payments and cashback to Indian customers. Through Fave, Pine Labs is also strengthening its play in the South-East Asian markets. Over 6 million consumers across over 40,000 merchant establishments now have access to the Fave app, the company said.
Pine Labs payment terminals — also known as point-of-sale machines — are connected to the cloud, and offer a range of additional services such as working capital — to the merchants. It has integration with over two dozen banks and financial and technology partners. This differentiates Pine Labs from the competition, whose terminals typically have integration with just one bank.
The startup posted net revenue of Rs 800 crore in FY21 and is Ebitda positive, according to company estimates shared with ET. Ebitda, which stands for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, is a measure of a company’s overall profitability.
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