Pine Labs To Appoint Avendus Capital’s Sameer Kamath As CFO

In the run up to the IPO, Pine Labs is roping in Sameer Kamath as its new chief financial officer.

The company is working out a plan for the transition, and Kamath will be joining soon, Inc42 has learnt from sources close to the development.

ET reported the development first. 

Kamath is currently the Group CFO at Mumbai-based investment bank Avendus Capital and brings over two decades of experience in the financial services sector. 

His previous roles include senior stints at Motilal Oswal Financial Services and RPG Enterprises. This comes just days after the startup filed its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

Pertinent to note that Marc Mathenz, the Singapore-based CFO of Pine Labs, resigned in June 2025, just ahead of the company’s DRHP filing.

Kamath has been with Avendus since 2017, serving as executive director and Group CFO. Before that, he held the position of Group CFO at Motilal Oswal between 2006 and 2017.

Inc42 has reached out to Pine Labs for comments on the development. The story will be updated based on the response.

Pine Labs filed its DRHP on June 26, aiming to raise up to INR 2,600 Cr through a fresh issue of shares.

The IPO will also include an offer for sale (OFS) of up to 14.78 Cr shares by key investors, including Mastercard, Peak XV Partners, Macritchie Investments (Temasek), PayPal, and cofounder Lokvir Kapoor.

Founded in 1988 by Lokvir Kapoor, Rajul Garg and Tarun Upadhyay, Pine Labs started off by offering card-based payment solutions for the retail petroleum industry. Over time, diversified into offering solutions for the broader retail sector and became a leading provider of point-of-sale (PoS) technology.

It counts the likes of backers like Peak XV Partners (20.35% stake), Singapore-based Macritchie Investments (7.10% stake), PayPal (6%), Actis Pine Labs Investment Holdings (5.78%), among others.

The Pine Labs leadership team currently consists of chief executive officer Amrish Rau, chief business officer Kush Mehra, chief technology officer Sanjeev Kumar, chief operating officer Sumit Chopra (as per the DRHP filing).

On leadership shareholding, Rao holds a 2.35% stake, while founder Lokvir Kapoor and CTO Sanjeev Kumar own 1.97% and 1.01% stakes, respectively. Rao also founded Citrus Payment Solutions, which was acquired by Pine Labs in 2016 for $130 Mn.

With the filing of its DRHP, the company also declared its earnings for the first 9 months of FY25. 

Like many other startups filing for IPO, Pine Labs also turned profitable with a net profit of INR 26.1 Cr during the period under consideration against a net loss of INR 151.6 Cr in the same period last year. Its revenue rose 32.9% to INR 1,675.6 Cr in 9M FY25 from INR 1,260 Cr in the same period last year. 

The fintech company plans to use the proceeds from the fresh issue to repay or prepay debt availed by it. A total of INR 870 Cr will go toward the repayment or prepayment of existing borrowings. Of this, INR 734.67 Cr will be used to repay Pine Labs’ debt, INR 45.56 Cr for subsidiary Synergistic and INR 89.76 Cr for Cashless Technologies. 

It will use INR 760 Cr for investment in its IT assets, expand its cloud infrastructure, and other technology development initiatives. Besides, INR 60 Cr will be invested in its subsidiaries Qwikcilver Singapore, Pine Payment Solutions, Malaysia and Pine Labs UAE for expanding presence outside India.