Pine Labs aims to take Indian fintech global even as it lowers its IPO valuation

Pine Labs, an Indian commerce startup backed by PayPal and Mastercard, will go public this week at a valuation about 40% lower than its last private round — even as it doubles down on plans to take its fintech platform global.

The Gurugram-based fintech company has set a price range of $210-221 (about $2.00 and $2.50) per share, valuing the company at about Rs 254 billion (about $2.9 billion) at the upper end of the range. This represents a decline of about 40% from its last private valuation of more than $5 billion in 2022.

Pine Labs also reduced its base offer by 20% to INR 20.8 billion (about US$234 million) from INR 26 billion in a draft prospectus filed in June, while the sell offer was reduced by 44% to 82.3 million shares from the previously planned 148 million shares.

Existing investors, including Peak XV Partners, Temasek Holdings, PayPal and Mastercard, are among those selling part of their holdings in the offering.

Amrish Rao, CEO of Pine Labs, told reporters in a press conference on Monday that investors chose to hold a larger portion of their shares, resulting in a smaller offering for sale.

“When it came to pricing this IPO, we were very clear that we wanted to continue to garner goodwill, and we wanted to have everyone’s support when we came out with this pricing for this IPO,” he said. “We believe we’ve been able to sustain that because, at the end of the day, it takes an entire village coming together to create a successful IPO.”

Founded in 1998, Pine Labs initially focused on deploying point-of-sale terminals for merchants but has since evolved beyond payment acceptance to enable bill payments through platforms such as Amazon Pay and CRED, and facilitate account aggregation-based transactions, among a broader range of payment, transaction and acquisition services.

Currently, about 70% of Pine Labs’ revenue comes from its digital infrastructure and transaction services, while the remaining 30% comes from its issuance and acquisition business, Rao said.

Pine Labs is among the few Indian startups that already serve clients outside the country and is seeking to expand its international presence following its planned listing on Indian stock exchanges. This is in line with the Indian government’s broader efforts to build globally competitive fintech offerings. The company is also part of a growing group of technology companies that have moved their headquarters to India to tap into the country’s large retail investor base and to align more closely with local regulatory frameworks.

The company currently serves over 980,000 merchants, 716 consumer brands and 177 financial institutions, managing over 6 billion transactions with a cumulative value of over INR 11.4 trillion (~US$128 billion). It already operates in 20 countries, including Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, Africa, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.

Between fiscal years 2023 and 2025, Pine Labs’ revenue from international markets increased approximately 58%, Rao said.

“What we have done in fintech in India, no other country has been able to do anything close to that,” he told reporters. “We have the opportunity to leverage this intellectual property knowledge, and the technology stack we’ve developed, and take it global. We were the first companies to actually do that, and we believe our fintech stack is in high demand in global markets, which is why we’re winning these customers in these international markets.”

In India, Pine Labs competes with the likes of Razorpay, Paytm and Walmart-owned PhonePe. The company was profitable in the June quarter, posting a net profit of INR 47.86 million (about US$540,000), compared to a loss of INR 278.89 million a year earlier. Revenue from operations rose 17.9% year-on-year to Rs 6.16 billion (about $69 million) in the quarter. The company’s overseas business contributed about 15% of total revenue, at INR 943.25 million (about US$11 million), up from INR 795.97 million in the previous year.

Pine Labs’ listing comes amid a wave of Indian tech companies preparing to go public, including Groww, Lenskart, Shadowfax, Meesho and BoAt, all of which are expected to launch their offerings this year.