With IPO Plans In Full Throttle, Pine Labs Picks Five Banks

Months after it was reported that Pine Labs has been looking to go public, the fintech major has reportedly picked five investment banks as advisors for its $1 Bn (around INR 8,424.7 Cr) initial public offering (IPO).

Pine Labs has picked Axis Capital, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, JP Morgan and Jefferies to run its IPO mandate, slated to be launched in the first half of FY26, Moneycontrol reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.

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

The report also said that there will be a secondary deal worth $100 Mn (about INR 842.5 Cr), enabling share transfer between existing investors and new venture capital firms, as part of the pre-IPO funding.

Reports on the company’s plans on hitting the exchanges initially came out in June, revealing that the company is likely to seek a valuation of over $6 Bn for the IPO.

Pine Labs, founded in 1998 by Lokvir Kapoor, Rajul Garg, and Tarun Upadhyay, is a diverse payment solution provider, including point of sales devices and payment systems to businesses. It also offers other solutions like pay later and rewards and cashback to businesses.

So far, the fintech player has raised around $1.6 Bn in total funding from investors like Peak XV Partners, Actis Capital, Temasek, PayPal, Mastercard, Alpha Wave Global, Chimera Capital, and State Bank of India. 

In a series of Pine Labs’ various measures to shift its base to India, the fintech startup secured the initial set of approvals from the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to merge its Singapore entity with its Indian subsidiary, in August. 

This development comes at a time when startups across various industries are pumped to hit the exchanges, with at least 10 companies making their debut this year. Meanwhile, there is a huge queue of startups set to go public in the following year.

For instance, a few days ago, SoftBank-backed B2B marketplace OfBusiness has roped in five banks including, Axis Capital, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Citigroup and Bank of America for its up to $1 Bn IPO, targeted for next year.

Meanwhile, Audio products and smartwatch maker boAt onboarded ICICI Securities, Goldman Sachs and Nomura as bankers for its $300-500 Mn IPO next year, about two weeks ago. 

Updated at 10:48 AM

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