Fintech Firm Pine Labs Weighing $1 Billion IPO in India

Fintech unicorn Pine Labs has decided to go ahead with its reverse flipping plan. Reports have revealed that it is now considering an initial public offering (IPO) in India.

This would be valued at $1 billion, or INR 8,300 Crores. A report from Bloomberg mentioned sources, claiming that the company plans to achieve a value of $6 billion via the IPO.

Public Listing

According to the report, the fintech firm may decide to conduct a pre-IPO funding round before the official public listing.

It further said that there might be a change in the valuations and size, as there had not been a final decision as yet.

There has not been any official announcement from Pine Labs regarding its plans of listing publicly. This would be the company’s second attempt at a public listing.

Back in 2022, Pine Labs had submitted its IPO documents to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with a public listing target of $500 million.

However, the fintech had decided to defer its IPO plans because it believed the market sentiment had been weak.

Now, it appears the company has decided to go ahead once more, considering that its valuation has increased significantly recently.

The Changes

Baron Capial had given the fintech valuation a solid boost earlier this year. This saw it climb up to reach $5.8 billion. Likewise, Invesco also gave it a bump to hit $4.8 billion.

Similar to a number of other startups in India, Pine Lab is working on shifting its base to the country as well. Therefore, it is weighing in the option of listing on Indian exchanges.

A Singapore court had given its approval to the company last month for merging its Singaporean entity with the Indian one.

This means that Pine Labs Limited (PLS) will merge with Pine Labs Private Limited (PLI). It is now waiting for the greenlight from the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).

The Background

Tarun Upadhyay, Rajul Garg and Lokvir Kapoor had established Pine Labs back in 1998. It offers a variety of payment solutions to merchants, including payment systems and point of sales devices.

Some of its other offerings include cashback and rewards businesses and pay later services. Till date, the fintech unicorn has managed to raise funds of $1.6 billion.

Some of the prominent investors in the company include Alpha Wave Global, State Bank of India, Actis Capital, Peak XV Partners, Temasek, MasterCard, Chimera Capital and PayPal.      

In its previous financial year between 2022 and 2023, the company had recorded a net loss of about INR 56.2 Crores.

This was more than twice the loss that had been seen in the previous fiscal year at INR 22.6 Crores.

The good news is that Pine Labs saw its operating revenue record a 37% increase from a year earlier to INR 1,280.5 Crores in FY23 from INR 932.3 Crores.

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