Pine Labs Launches Soundbox Device For Merchants To Accept Mobile & Card Payments

Fintech unicorn Pine Labs has teamed up with credit and debit cards major Visa to launch a soundbox-enabled device ‘Pine Labs Mini’, which allows merchants to accept both mobile and card payments across Visa, Mastercard, American Express and RuPay networks.

The device has a built-in ‘tap and pay’ feature through which merchants can accept card payments up to INR 5,000. Users with NFC-enabled smartphones can also pay through their phones using the tap feature.

The device supports both 4G and 5G network connectivity and has 8 hours of battery life on full charge. While Pine Labs Mini currently offers audio alerts in two languages — Hindi and English, the company might add support for additional languages in the coming days.

Pine Labs Mini has been specifically designed to cater to small and medium-sized merchants, helping them tap into the growing consumer adoption of tap-to-pay card (and smartphone) payments and UPI in India, the company said in a statement.

Founded in 1998 by Lokvir Kapoor, Rajul Garg, and Tarun Upadhyay, Pine Labs provides payment solutions like point of sales devices and payment systems to businesses. It also offers other solutions like pay later and rewards and cashback to businesses.

The company has raised a total funding of about $1.6 Bn till date. It counts Peak XV Partners, Actis Capital, Temasek, PayPal, Mastercard, Alpha Wave Global, Chimera Capital, and State Bank of India among its investors.

Earlier this month, Pine Labs also launched a UPI-focused payments platform called UPISetu for businesses and developers in partnership with Axis Bank.

The developments come at a time when Pine Labs is planning to reverse flip to India ahead of its initial public offering (IPO). As per reports, Pine Labs is looking to raise $1 Bn (INR 8,300 Cr) through its IPO at a likely valuation of $6 Bn.

Earlier this month, Pine Labs got a step closer to shifting its base back to India after the National Company Law Tribunal approved the proposed merger of Pine Labs’ Singapore entity with its Indian subsidiary.

Pine Labs consolidated net loss more than doubled to INR 56.2 Cr in the financial year 2022-23 (FY23) from INR 22.6 Cr in the previous fiscal. However, revenue from operations jumped 37% to INR 1,280.5 Cr during the year under review from INR 932.3 Cr in FY22.