Pine Labs goals to take Indian fintech world even because it cuts valuation for IPO

Pine Labs, an Indian merchant-commerce startup backed by PayPal and Mastercard, is going 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 has set a price band of ₹210–₹221 (about $2.00–$2.50) a share, valuing the company at approximately ₹254 billion (around $2.9 billion) at the upper end of the range. This represents a decline of about 40% from its last private valuation of over $5 billion in 2022.

Pine Labs has also reduced its primary offering by 20% to ₹20.8 billion (approximately $234 million) from ₹26 billion in its draft prospectus filed in June, while the offer for sale has been cut by 44% to 82.3 million shares from 148 million shares planned earlier.

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

Pine Labs CEO Amrish Rau told reporters at a press briefing on Monday that investors had chosen to retain a larger portion of their shareholdings, which resulted in a smaller offer for sale.

“When it came to the pricing of this IPO, we were very clear that we want to continue to garner goodwill, and we wanted to get everybody’s support when we go out with this pricing for this IPO,” he said. “We believe we were able to maintain that because, at the end of the day, it takes a village to come 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 to facilitate account-aggregator-based transactions, among a broader suite of payment, transaction, and acquiring services.

Currently, about 70% of Pine Labs’ revenue comes from its digital infrastructure and transaction services, while the remaining 30% is generated from its issuing and acquiring businesses, Rau said.

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

The firm currently serves over 980,000 merchants, 716 consumer brands, and 177 financial institutions, powering more than 6 billion transactions cumulatively valued at over ₹11.4 trillion (around $128 billion). It already operates in 20 countries, including Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, Africa, the UAE, and the U.S.

Between the financial years 2023 and 2025, Pine Labs’ revenue from international markets grew by nearly 58%, Rau 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 take this IP knowledge, the technology stack that we have developed, and make it global. We have been the first companies which has actually done that, and we believe that our fintech stack is very, very much in demand in global markets, and that’s why we are winning these clients in these international markets.”

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

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