Payments solution provider Pine Labs on Monday said it has raised close to $100 million from American hedge fund Lone Pine Capital that valued the firm at $2 billion.
The Noida-based company became India’s first unicorn of 2020 with a reported valuation of $1.6 billion in January when it raised money from Mastercard. The latest fund-raise makes Pine Labs India’s third most-valued fintech startup after Paytm-parent One97 Communications Ltd (valued at $16 billion) and PhonePe ($5.5 billion).
This year also saw business payment service provider Razorpay and retail broker Zerodha enter the unicorn club with a valuation of a little over $1 billion. Pine Labs plans to reintroduce its cash flow-based lending product for merchants through bank partnerships next month, said a person aware of the firm’s plans. The company had paused offering the product during the pandemic. It may also enter the online payment gateway business, said the person cited above.
“We are thrilled to welcome Lone Pine as an investor during this exciting and transformative phase of Pine Labs’ growth journey. Small businesses and consumers are fast-adapting to digital commerce and contactless checkout. We are also seeing tremendous uptake in Pay Later services and have now enabled nearly 150,000 outlets for this,” said B. Amrish Rau, CEO of Pine Labs.
Lone Pine Capital, founded by Stephen Mandel, has investments in Facebook, Microsoft, PayPal, Booking Holdings Zoom and Netflix, among others.
