Pine Labs revenue soars 55 pc in FY18 as the company slumps into loss after reporting profits

Digital retail payments provider Pine Labs swings to loss of Rs 2.51 crore in FY18 after reporting a profit of Rs 3.80 crore last fiscal.

Point of sale and digital retail payments provider Pine Labs reported an increase in its standalone revenues by 55 percent to Rs 302 crore in FY18, as compared to Rs 195.1 crore in FY17.

However, the company slumped into a loss of Rs 2.51 crores in FY18, after registering profit of Rs 3.80 crore in FY17.

A major reason could be the increase in the employee benefits given by the company which rose by 85 percent, in FY18. Last fiscal, the company spent close to Rs 153.53 crores in employee benefit, as compared to spending Rs 82.8 crores in FY17.

Other expenses for the company also increased by 48 percent to Rs 94.7 crores in FY18.

Founded in 1998, Pine Labs in March claimed to process close to 450 million transactions worth over $15 billion on an annual basis.

Further, the total revenue made by Pine Labs through the sale of its services stood at Rs 286.59 crore, which contributed to almost 95 percent of the total revenue. Further, this number was up by 60 percent when compared to FY17, where the company registered revenue of Rs 179 crores through the sale of services.

This March, Pine Labs stated that its solution was deployed at approximately 300,000 payment acceptance terminals. The company is aiming to take this number to 1 million payment acceptance points in India over the next three to five years.

It reportedly has business in five regions including India, UK, USA, Middle East and Southeast Asia, and had plans to expand to the Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka over the next three quarters.

This March, Pine Labs raised a funding of $82 million in a round led by Actis Capital and new investor Altimeter Capital. In April last year, it was reported that Sequoia Capital had concluded a $180 million secondary stake sale in its portfolio companies to Madison Capital.

One of those was portfolio companies included Pine Labs.