Pine Labs’ early investors set to bag stellar gains from IPO

Pine Labs, which is set for subscription between 7 and 11 November, has set a price band of ₹210-221. The Gurugram-based company is set to launch a ₹3,809- ₹3,990 crore issue and the company has sought a post-issue valuation of ₹24,217 crore ($2.7 billion) to ₹25,377 crore ($2.8 billion). Other marquee new age startups including Groww and Lenskart are also eyeing the public market in this window.

The company has appointed Axis Capital, Morgan Stanley, Citi, JP Morgan, and Jefferies to help with the issue.

Pine Labs will raise ₹2,080 crore in fresh capital, alongside an offer for sale (OFS) of up to 82.34 million shares by existing shareholders—lower than its earlier plan of ₹2,600 crore and 147.8 million shares.

Big exits ahead

The selling shareholders include Peak XV Partners, Actis, Temasek’s MacRitchie Investments, PayPal, Mastercard, Madison India, Lone Cascade, and Sofina Ventures. Founder Lokvir Kapoor will also offload part of his stake.

These investors stand to make hefty gains when the company lists. Peak XV, for instance, with an average acquisition price of ₹5.60 per share, could see 37.5x returns at the lower end of the price band.

Others such as Actis ( ₹71.43), MacRitchie ( ₹76.67), PayPal ( ₹77.78), Mastercard ( ₹128.62), Madison ( ₹39.43), Lone Cascade ( ₹190.87), and Sofina ( ₹47.22) are likely to make between 1x and 4.5x returns, Mint’s analysis showed.

Kapoor, who has an average acquisition price of ₹ 0.49, will make 428.5x returns on his partial stake sale. Invesco, which will also sell up to 3.2 million shares at an average acquisition price of ₹243.89, will however make losses on the trade.

Proceeds from the IPO will go toward repaying borrowings, investing in subsidiaries such as Qwikcilver Singapore, Pine Payment Solutions (Malaysia), and Pine Labs UAE, and strengthening IT and cloud infrastructure.

The company has grown through acquisitions including Qwikcilver, Mosambee, QFix, Setu, and Credit+, expanding its footprint across India and South-East Asia.

India’s buoyant IPO market has seen listings from JSW Cement, Tata Capital, Ather Energy, LG India, WeWork India, and Orkla India this year. Other fintechs—including Razorpay, PhonePe, Moneyview, Fibe, and Turtlemint—are preparing to tap the market soon.

Evolution and growth

Founded in 1998 by Lokvir Kapoor, Tarun Upadhyay, and Rajul Garg, Pine Labs began as a card-based payments and loyalty solutions firm in the petroleum sector before pivoting to point-of-sale (PoS) technology.

As of June 2025, it serves over 1 million merchants across retail, grocery, lifestyle, healthcare, travel, and e-commerce segments.

To date, Pine Labs has raised over $1 billion from marquee investors including Peak XV Partners, Temasek, PayPal, Mastercard, and Fidelity. Its largest round came in 2021 when Fidelity led a $315 million investment. Subsequently, it raised about $50 million from London-based investment firm Vitruvian Partners at a valuation of $5 billion.

It entered the gift card segment with the 2019 acquisition of Qwikcilver and expanded its reach among small and medium merchants through the 2022 purchase of Mosambee. Its acquisition of Fave in 2020–21 marked its entry into consumer-facing UPI (Unified Payments Interface) payments and South-East Asian markets. Pine Labs has since extended its gift card business to the US and Australia and moved into online payments to compete with players such as Razorpay and Paytm.

Financial snapshot

In FY25, Pine Labs’ revenue rose 29% to ₹2,274 crore from ₹1,769 crore in FY24, while losses narrowed to ₹145 crore from ₹341.9 crore.

For the June 2025 quarter, it reported ₹615 crore in revenue and a profit of ₹4.8 crore.