Pine Labs closes latest fundraise at $600 million, eyes US listing
Pine Labs wants to become the first Indian fintech to list offshore, with the right unit economics and Ebitda profile, while recording 50-60% revenue growth year-on-year
Digital payments service provider Pine Labs raised $315 million in capital as part of its ongoing fundraise and closed its current funding round at $600 million, the company said on Tuesday.
A slew of public market investors, including Fidelity Management and Research Co., BlackRock; Ishana; Tree Line, a fund advised by Neuberger Berman Investment Advisers LLC, along with IIFL Asset Management Ltd through its ‘Late-Stage Tech Fund’ have joined the company’s growing cap table.
The latest transaction values Pine Labs at $3 billion. The funding comes a month after the startup announced that it raised $285 million in primary and secondary equity sales from public market investors, including Baron Capital Group, Duro Capital, Marshall Wace, Moore Strategic Ventures and Ward Ferry Management.
With this fundraise, the company is looking to list in the US markets in 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 South-East Asia. Our full-stack approach to payments and merchant commerce has allowed us to grow merchant partnerships by nearly 100% over the last year. 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,” said B. Amrish Rau, chief executive officer, Pine Labs.
Mint first reported that the company was eyeing an additional tranche as a part of the current fundraise and was setting sights for a global listing in May.
In a 25 May interview, Rau said the company’s ambition remains to be the first Indian fintech to list in offshore markets. “We don’t want Pine Labs to be an India-centric story alone. Pine Labs’ listing internationally will not only be a good story for the global markets but will also augur well for the larger fintech ecosystem back in India,” Rau said.
The company is eyeing additional fundraising by the end of the year as it looks to expand into West Asia next year. 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 Unified Payments Interface (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 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 PayLater offering with $3 billion in annualized PayLater transactions. Through its acquisitions of QwikCilver and Fave, Pine Labs now has the market-leading prepaid 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,” said Shailendra Singh, managing director, Sequoia Capital.
At present, 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 currently powers close to 1 billion online transactions every month, and this number will grow to almost 10 billion in 12 months, Rau said.
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First Published:7 Jul 2021, 12:22 AM IST
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