Merchant payments unicorn Pine Labs to file DRHP for up to Rs 6,000 crore IPO, report says

Pine Labs, the merchant payments and consumer lending unicorn, is expected to file its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) by the end of this month, as it lays the groundwork for a public listing later this year, ET reported.

The Noida-based firm is aiming to raise Rs 5,000–6,000 crore (approximately $585–702 million) through the initial public offering. If the offering goes through as planned, Pine Labs could be valued between $4 billion and $5 billion, in line with the valuation it reached during its last private market funding round in 2022.

Axis Capital, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Citi and Jefferies are the bankers to the issue. The IPO is expected to take place towards the end of the year, contingent on market conditions. The DRHP filing is part of a broader shift in the company’s long-term public listing strategy after its previous attempt to list in the U.S. did not materialise.

Pine Labs had confidentially filed for an IPO with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2022, aiming to raise about $500 million. That effort stalled as market conditions changed and the company shifted its listing strategy to India.

The move follows Pine Labs’ formal shift of domicile from Singapore to India, completed on April 9 after receiving clearance from the Chandigarh bench of the National Company Law Tribunal. The firm also converted to a public limited company and appointed independent directors in preparation for the IPO process.

The company has raised close to $1.3 billion in capital to date from investors such as Peak XV Partners, Temasek, PayPal, Mastercard, Alpha Wave, and Vitruvian Partners.

Founded in 1998 by Lokvir Kapoor, Rajul Garg, and Tarun Upadhyay, Pine Labs initially focused on loyalty and card-based payment solutions before pivoting in the late 2000s into merchant payments. Over the last four years, it has diversified into online payments and consumer finance. The company secured a payment aggregator licence from the Reserve Bank of India in 2022 and launched Pine Labs Online, its digital payments offering.

It has also made a string of acquisitions to build a broader fintech stack. In 2021, Pine Labs acquired Southeast Asia-based Fave to expand its consumer payments business. In 2022, it purchased Bengaluru-based fintech startup Setu, giving it access to account aggregator infrastructure.

The acquisition of Mumbai-based Mosambee in the same year strengthened its point-of-sale (PoS) deployment capabilities, while Qwikcilver brought Pine Labs into the gift card ecosystem. The company has also been active in the buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) space, targeting both online and offline retail channels.