IPO-Bound Pine Labs Bags $150 Mn From Alpha Wave Ventures

IPO-bound fintech unicorn Pine Labs has raised $150 Mn from Alpha Wave Ventures at a little over $6 Bn valuation. Pine Labs’s CEO Amrish Rau has confirmed the development to Inc42. 

The round seems to be a Pre-IPO round of the 22-year-old fintech giant which is gearing for a NASDAQ listing this year. 

The development comes almost a month after Pine Labs bagged $20 Mn from India’s largest commercial bank SBI. 

“We can confirm that Alpha Wave Venture has invested $150 Mn in Pine Labs. We are happy to bring a marquee investor on board. Our omnichannel strategy is showing strong revenue growth. We are also seeing strong growth in international markets,” Rau told Inc42. 

The funding news was first reported by ET. 

The investment also comes ten days after Pine Labs acquired Mumbai-based online payment startup Qfix Infocomm. 

Pine Labs has been actively raising funding since last year. The fintech unicorn in 2021 raised a total of $700 Mn in funding in two tranches. In July last year, it raised $600 Mn from its new investors Fidelity Management & Research Company, BlackRock, Ishana, and Tree Line among others. In the month of September, Pine Labs got $100 Mn US-based investment management company Invesco at a valuation of $6 Bn. 

Founded in 1998 by Lokvir Kapoor, the startup entered the coveted unicorn club with $1 Bn valuation in 2020 after closing a deal with US multinational financial services corporation MasterCard. 

The Noida-based startup enables large and mid-sized businesses in Asia and the Middle East to accept digital payments. It offers merchant commerce solutions including enterprise automation systems such as customer relationship and inventory management. 

It claims its cloud-based platform helps 140,000 merchants, 3.5 Lakh PoS (point of sale) terminals across 3,700 cities and towns in India and Malaysia. More than 15 major banks, seven financial institutions and more than 100 brands are a part of Pine Lab’s platform that processes payments worth $30 Bn every year.

Pine Labs, which is reportedly eying for a $1 Bn IPO enjoys support of marquee investors such as Sequoia India, Singapore’s Temasek, PayPal, Actis Capital, among others. 

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