Pine Labs secures $150 million from Alpha Wave at over $5 billion valuation

CIOReviewIndia Team | Friday, 18 February 2022, 09:11 IST

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pineIPO-bound Pine Labs has raised $150 million in a mix of primary and secondary funding from Alpha Wave Global (formerly Falcon Edge), at a valuation of over $5 billion, according to multiple people in the know.
 
The digital payments and financial service provider has already received the first tranche of $75 million from Alpha Wave, show regulatory filings filed by the company in Singapore. This was reported first by Dealstreet Asia.
 
The current funding also includes a secondary raise in the range of $50 million to $75 million, sources familiar with the deal details said.
 
Pine Labs CEO Amrish Rau confirmed the development on Friday morning, stating that the funding has come on account of the company building an omni-channel strategy.
 
“We can confirm that Alpha Wave Venture has invested $150 million in Pine Labs. We are happy to bring a marquee investor on board. Our omni-channel strategy is showing strong revenue growth. We are also seeing strong growth in international markets,” Rau said. He however declined to comment on the secondary raise which is a part of the current round.
 
ETtech had first reported on December 7, that Pine Labs was in final stages to raise at least $100 million from Falcon Edge, at a valuation of $5 billion $5.5 billion. The overall round size is expected to close between $100 million-$200 million.
 
Last year, the merchant-focussed fintech took its first steps towards consumer offerings with the acquisition of Singapore-based loyalty payments startup Fave. The company had plans to offer unified payments interface (UPI)-based payments to consumers. It was also looking to go deeper into Southeast Asian geographies with the acquisition.
 
The company was charting plans to enter the Middle-East, this year.
 
In a bid to diversify, Pine Labs, which has largely focussed on the offline merchants, also launched a payment gateway, Plural, last year, to help new-age direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands accept digital and credit-linked payments.
 
It has also been aggressively looking to double down on the online payments space.
 
The company has held talks to acquire API-based infrastructure company Setu in a cash and equity deal for $70- $100 million, ETtech reported on February 2, citing sources.
 
Earlier this month, it announced the acquisition of Mumbai-based online payments startup Qfix Infocomm to bolster its online payments play and offer additional services including billing, invoicing and workflows to merchants.
 
Pine Labs had filed for a ‘confidential’ initial public offering (IPO) worth $500 million with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and was seeking a valuation between $6 billion to $7 billion. The same month the company also raised $20 million from India’s largest lender, State Bank of India.
 
The company is backed by the likes of Sequoia Capital, Temasek Holdings, Actis, PayPal and Mastercard among others.