Asian merchant e-commerce giant Pine Labs announced today that it has closed a $600 million financing round at a valuation of $3 billion and aims to explore the public markets within two years. Fidelity Management & Research Company, BlackRock, Ishana, and a fund advised by Neuberger Berman Investment Advisers, and IIFL and Kotak backed the firm in this round.
Speaking on the latest round, B. Amrish Rau, CEO, Pine Labs, 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% 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 the CEO.
Pine Labs in recent years have acquired some businesses. Two years ago it acquired QwikCilver, and acquired Fave for $45 million three months ago. The startup claims that over 6 million consumers across over 40,000 merchant establishments now have access to the Fave app.
“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.” Shailendra Singh, MD, Sequoia Capital
The e-commerce giant provides Point-of-sale machines, invoicing tools and working capital to hundreds of thousands of merchants. Its payments terminal or point-of-sale machines, which integrates with over two dozen banks and financial and technology partners, are connected to the cloud and offer a range of additional services such as working capital — to the merchants.
India in focus
GDP: $2.262 trillion compared to $2.871 trillion in 2019
Population: 1.38 billion in 2020 compared to 1.366 billion in 2019
GDP per capita: $1,900 in 2020 compared to $2,100 in 2019
