Pine Labs is in talks to buy Qwikcilver for over $100 m

BENGALURU: Pine Labs, a point-of-sales payments solutions company, is close to acquiring Bengaluru-based digital gift card firm Qwikcilver Solutions for over $100 million, three people in the know of the matter said.

The deal is likely to be a mix of cash and stock, they told ET.

While the existing investors of Qwikcilver, such as Amazon, Sistema Asia Fund, Accel India and Helion Venture Partners are expected to cash out, the founders of the company will stay on along with the team, the sources said.

“Qwikcilver had been looking to raise funds for few months,” one of them said. “This deal could give a good exit for its investors and would also help Pine Labs create a strong footing in the gifting space which has huge prospects in overall digital payments.”

Investors could rack up a 5-6 times return on the capital invested. Qwikcilver had so far raised $20 million in all.

Kumar Sudarshan, who founded Qwikcilver along with Pratap TP in 2006, declined to comment. Emails sent to Pine Labs executive chairman Lokvir Kapoor and its major shareholder Sequoia Capital did not get any response as of press time on Monday.

Pine Labs deploys PoS terminals for banks at merchant outlets. The company has the largest number of terminals in India, numbering more than 3,00,000, and had recently expanded operations to the United Arab Emirates as well.

Backed by venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, Pine Labs had raised fresh funding of $125 million from American payments major PayPal and global investment company Temasek Capital in June last year. Before that, in March the company had received $82 million from private equity fund Actis and California-based investment company Altimeter Capital.

There have been reports about the company raising a new funding round.

With these investments, Pine Labs could be valued at somewhere close to $1 billion, earning it a unicorn status in the country.