B Amrish Rau, CEO of Pine Labs 
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Merchant platform Pine Labs raises $600 million in funding round

The new investors are Fidelity Management & Research Company, funds managed by BlackRock, Ishana and Tree Line.

Written by : IANS

Leading merchant commerce platform Pine Labs on Tuesday, July 6 announced that it has secured over $600 million in a funding round with the entry of new investors, which is subject to approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

The new investors are Fidelity Management & Research Company, funds managed by BlackRock, Ishana, Tree Line, a fund advised by Neuberger Berman Investment Advisers LLC.

IIFL AMC via its 'Late-Stage Tech Fund' and Kotak are also participating in this investment round, the company said in a statement.

Over the last year, Pine Labs has made significant progress in its offline to online strategy in India and the direct-to-consumer play in Southeast Asia.

"Our full-stack approach to payments and merchant commerce has allowed us to grow in-month merchant partnerships by nearly 100% over the last year," said B Amrish Rau, CEO, Pine Labs.

Pine Labs is backed by Sequoia Capital, Temasek Holdings, Actis, PayPal and Mastercard, among other leading global investors.

"The company also has the market leading ‘Pay Later' offering with $3 billion in annualised PayLater transactions. Through its acquisitions of QwikCilver and Fave, Pine Labs now has the market leading pre-paid platform in this region as well as the top consumer loyalty product in this market," said Shailendra Singh, MD, Sequoia Capital.

In April, Pine Labs acquired Fave, a leading consumer fintech platform that is said to provide a smart payment app to the smart generation of consumers looking to pay and save.

Over six million consumers across over 40,000 merchant establishments now have access to the Fave app, the company said. Fave currently operates in 35 cities across Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia and will arrive in India later this year.

Pine Labs said that Fave's investors will receive an all-cash payout, while founders and key Fave employees will receive both cash and Pine Labs shares. Pine Labs has rapidly transformed from a single product company allowing retail acceptance of payments to a broader payments platform.