[Funding alert] Fintech platform Pine Labs announces $600M round led by Fidelity and BlackRock

Fintech unicorn Pine Labs, on Tuesday announced an investment round of $600 million led by Fidelity Management & Research Company and BlackRock Inc. Other investors participating in the round include a fund advised by Neuberger Berman Investment Advisers LLC, Ishana, Tree Line, IIFL AMC via its ‘Late-Stage Tech Fund’, and Kotak.

This investment round is subject to approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the company said.

Pine Labs provides a range of financial services, including point-of-sale devices, merchant commerce, and financing. It has a presence in India, South East Asia, and the Middle East.

Backed by Sequoia Capital, Temasek Holdings, Actis, PayPal, and Mastercard amongst other leading global investors, the Singapore-based startup is valued at $3 billion, said Amrish Rau, Chief Executive Officer, Pine Labs.

On the fresh round of funding, Amrish 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 percent 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,”

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Shailendra Singh, MD, Sequoia Capital, said Pine Labs had rapidly transformed from a single product company allowing retail acceptance of payments to a broader payments platform.

"The company 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 market-leading PayLater offering with ~$3B in annualised PayLater transactions," he said.

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, we are very well positioned to help drive immense value to merchant partners in India and other SEA markets,” he said.

The startup acquired pay-and-save app Fave in April 2021 for $45 million. That app now has six million users and more than 40,000 merchants.