Digital payments provider Pine Labs has raised another $315 million in fresh capital as a part of its ongoing fundraise, and closed its current round at $600 million, the company confirmed on Tuesday.
With the fresh raise, a slew of public market investors, including Fidelity Management & Research Company, BlackRock, Ishana, Tree Line, advised by Neuberger Berman Investment Advisers LLC, along with IIFL AMC via its ‘Late-Stage Tech Fund’ and Kotak have joined the company’s growing cap table.
With the current close, the valuation of the startup stands at $3 billion.
The funding comes a month after the company announced that it had raised $285 million in primary and secondary equity sale, 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 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 B. Amrish Rau, chief executive officer, Pine Labs.
Mint had first reported in May that the company was eyeing an additional tranche as a part of the current fundraise and was setting sights for an international listing.
In an earlier interaction with Mint, Rau had said the company’s ambition is to be the first Indian fintech to list in offshore markets.
“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. 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,” said Rau earlier.
The company is eyeing additional fundraise by the end of 2021, as it looks to expand into new geographies of the Middle East by early next year. The company, which announced the acquisition of loyalty startup Fave in April, this year, 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 Southeast 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 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,” 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.
It powers close to 1 billion online transactions every month and this number will grow to almost 10 billion in 12 months, Rau said.
Source: Mint