Mastercard’s swipe makes Pine Labs 1st unicorn in 2020

Point-of-sales (PoS) services provider Pine Labs has raised a new round of funding from the global card network major Mastercard. While transaction details were not disclosed, the new round is pegged at $100-150 million (Rs 713-1,069 crore). This will make the Sequoia-backed Pine Labs the first Indian unicorn in 2020 with a valuation of $1.5-1.6 billion, said one of the sources briefed on the deal.

In a prepared statement, Pine Labs said it will work with Mastercard to deliver a range of card and real-time payments-based instalment financing at checkout — both in-store and online. The funding comes at a time when the company has been expanding its lending business with debit and credit card-based financing options for consumers in partnership with banks and merchants.

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It has about 1.4 lakh merchants across 4.5 lakh network points. It already offers working capital loans and the company also set up a unit called Pine Labs Finance earlier last year. One of Pine Labs’s core sources of revenue is from the monthly fee it gets from its PoS machines.

Pine Labs claimed it processes payments to the tune of $30 billion in one year. Its services include payments acceptance technology, stored value products, in-store consumer credit and other merchant solutions. TOI had reported in its October 10 edition that Pine Labs is eyeing a valuation of around $1.5 billion for its new round and has mandated JPMorgan for the deal.

The company is an early bet by Sequoia Capital India, which invested in it about 11 years ago and now owns a majority stake. Prior to this, Pine Labs had raised over $200 million (Rs 1,426 crore) from US payments giant PayPal, besides financial investors like Temasek, Actis and Altimeter Capital. A large part of this capital was spent last year to acquire online gift cards company Qwikcilver for $110 million (Rs 784 crore).

“Together, we have a unique opportunity to use Mastercard’s global presence and technology infrastructure to enhance our growth and enable us to meet the growing needs of customers in India and beyond,” said Lokvir Kapoor, founder and chairman of Pine Labs.