India's Pine Labs raises $285m

Baron Capital Group, Duro Capital, Marshall Wace, Moore Strategic Ventures, and Ward Ferry Management – described as public market cross-over investors – led the round. There was also participation from existing backers Temasek Holdings, Lone Pine Capital, and Sunley House Capital.

In addition to primary capital, the round included secondary shares held by the founder, employees, and early shareholders.

Pine Labs offers a cloud-based payments platform that allows merchants in India, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East otherwise dependent on traditional point-of-sale (POS) terminals to accept payments via methods including online wallets, QR codes, and electronic gift cards, as well as credit and debit cards. It claims to have generated positive EBITDA for several years.

The company, which serves more than 150,000 merchants, will use the proceeds to further scale its product stack. Recent initiatives include the launch of an installment payment offering – already available in India – in Malaysia. There are plans to roll it out across Southeast Asia.

The $45 million acquisition of Fave in April followed the purchase of Indian gift card technology provider Qwikcilver a year earlier. Pine Labs had already made a strategic investment in Fave as part of an operational partnership and expansion, so Fave’s QR code system was already interoperable with its POS terminals. Fave’s app is scheduled for launch in India later this year.

“We are very excited to be a part of the technological transformation that Pine Labs is driving on the ground in payments and the multiple interlinkages and efficiencies it is able to create by providing faster, cost-effective consumer access to a broader range of financial products such as BNPL (buy now, pay later), where it is driving a pioneering effort on behalf of the financial system,” said Amit Rajpal, CEO and portfolio manager of Marshall Wace Asia.

Founded in 1998, Pine Labs received backing from Sequoia Capital India in 2009, according to AVCJ Research. PayPal and Temasek provided $125 million in 2018, with MasterCard investing an undisclosed sum two years later. US-based Lone Pine Capital invested $100 million in December 2020. Actis, Altimeter Capital, and Madison India Capital are also investors.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Southeast Asia
• Financials
• Technology
• Expansion
• India
• Malaysia
• Growth capital
• Temasek Holdings