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It was in 2009 that Pine labs' real payments journey began when they ventured into the mainstream payments space to provide solutions to merchants, connecting them to banks and other financial services.
They were acutely aware that merchants were seeking solutions to enhance their engagement with customers during the payment process. So, the company partnered with banks and payment aggregators and ensured their PoS terminal could process all forms of digital payments.
Pine Labs - Company Highlights
| Startup Name | Pine Labs Pvt. Ltd. |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Noida, India |
| Industry | Fintech |
| Founded | 1998 |
| Founders | Lokvir Kapoor, Rajul Garg, Tarun Upaday |
| CEO | Amrish Rau |
| Website | www.pinelabs.com |
Pine Labs - About and How it Works?
Pine Labs - Logo and its Meaning
Pine Labs - Founder and History
Pine Labs - Mission
Pine Labs - Recent News
Pine Labs - Products and Services
Pine Labs - Business Model
Pine Labs - Revenue and Growth
Pine Labs - Funding and Investors
Pine Labs - Investments
Pine Labs - Acquisitions
Pine Labs - Competitors
Pine Labs - Challenges Faced
Pine Labs - Future Plans
Pine Labs - FAQs
Pine Labs - About and How it Works?
Pine Labs is an Indian merchant platform company that provides financing and last-mile retail transaction technology, founded in 1998.
Everyday merchants use this platform to increase revenue whilst reducing costs, complexity and risks. This gives Pine Labs an unique opportunity to participate in their growth journey. They focus on merchants’ needs, revenue generation strategies, last-mile retail transaction technologies, data analysis and experiences for their shoppers and customers. They offer a full-stack merchant platform that is a unique blend of technology and financial solutions.
Pine Labs' solutions, which are used by merchants from diverse sectors, are used by over 100,000 merchants in India and several other Asian countries. In India alone, the company’s cloud-based platform powers over 350,000 PoS terminals in over 3,700 towns.
Pine Labs - Logo and its Meaning
The logo has a bright green double arrow symbol pointed Northeast, and denotes growth, prosperity and optimism.
Pine Labs - Founder and History
The Pine Labs Founders are Lokvir Kapoor, Rajul Garg, and Tarun Upaday.
In the beginning, the company's focus was clearly on large-scale, smart, card-based payment and loyalty solutions for the retail petroleum industry. It was in 2009 that their real payments journey began when they ventured into the mainstream payments space to provide solutions to merchants, connecting them to banks and other financial services. They partnered with banks and payment aggregators and ensured our POS terminal could process all forms of digital payments.
By 2012, Pine Labs had redefined their payment technology offerings and grown into a company that pioneered the smart, cloud-based unified point-of-sale platform, designed to reduce costs and drive revenues for retailers. Their alliances with top banks and brands gave them the ability to offer multiple services to the merchant through their platform.
Thus, they evolved into a merchant platform that encompasses solutions around payments, risk assessment, multi-channel analytics, merchant lending and insurance, brand offers, cashback, integrated billing and more. They have a network of 21 financial services institutions and 100 brands in the company's network.
The year 2017 saw Pine Labs lay their first global footprint, when they entered Malaysia with an exclusive partnership with CIMB Bank. And today, Pine Labs is well into building the world’s most robust merchant platform that brings together technology and financial solutions to meet every need of the modern merchant.
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Pine Labs - Mission
Pine Labs' mission statement says, "Maniacal focus on creating a product and services platform that widens access and accelerates commerce for merchants in each local market we operate in."
Pine Labs - Recent News
- Pine Labs is working towards an IPO by March 2022
- Dec 2020 - Pine Labs now works with Mastercard to deliver a range of card and real-time payments
- Nov 2020 - Former Square, Facebook senior executive Gokul Rajaram joins Pine Labs as advisor
- July 2020 - Pine Labs appoints former First Data India MD, Nitish Asthana as COO
Pine Labs - Products and Services
The company provides mobile point of sale (PoS) solutions that allow merchants to accept credit and debit card payments. Some offerings of Pine Labs include Instant EMI, Instant Discounts, Cashback Programs, PaybyPoints, Loyalty Solutions, e-Wallet, Targeted Promotions, Dynamic Currency Conversion and Gift Solution.
Pine Labs - Business Model
After two decades of working closely with merchants, Pine Labs now help merchants sell more, grow more and build more with greater efficiency. They serve merchants’ omni-channel needs. Leveraging technology and domain expertise, they cater to merchants of all sizes helping them to thrive in the changing global marketplace.
The Pine Labs business model is altered as per its merchants' needs. They introduced the advanced cloud-based point-of-sale (POS) platform that enhanced their engagement with customers during the payment process. Pine Labs has restructured the payment technology space whilst hand in hand contributing to the world's digital economy as well.
Pine Labs - Revenue and Growth
Pine Labs has a network of over 150K merchants across 3700 cities in India and Malaysia.
Transactions on Pine Labs PoS can be initiated by cards, QR codes, or phone number billing. The company also offers working capital loans, loyalty services via PinePerks etc.
Some of its partners include Apple, Google Pay, Samsung, Sony etc. The company has raised $310.8 Mn from investors such as Sequoia India, PayPal, Temasek, Actis Capital, Altimeter Capital, Madison India Capital and Sofina.
In terms of financial performance, after the pivot in 2014, the company had first posted profits in FY17. But with the increasing costs of growth in terms of expenses, it couldn’t maintain the profitability and Pine Labs slipped to losses for FY18 and FY19.
However, when we look at net loss figures, the losses of Pine Labs have jumped 4.46X, but excluding tax, the company’s losses had decreased marginally from INR 18.3 Cr in FY18 to INR 15.22 Cr in FY19. The impact could be seen of deferred taxes.
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Pine Labs - Funding and Investors
The Pine Labs funding has raised a total of over $138.2 Million in funding over 7 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Jan 24, 2020 from a Corporate Round round.
| Date | Round | Amount | Lead Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| December 21, 2020 | Secondary Market | - | Lone Pine Capital |
| Jan 24, 2020 | Corporate Round | - | Mastercard |
| May 31, 2018 | Secondary Market | $125M | PayPal Ventures, Temasek Holdings |
| Mar 13, 2018 | Private Equity Round | $22M | Actis |
| Jul 29, 2017 | Corporate Round | ₹7.1B | Flipkart |
| Apr 20, 2017 | Secondary Market | - | Madison India Capital |
| Mar 25, 2009 | Seed Round | $1M | Sequoia Capital India |
Pine Labs - Investments
Pine Labs has invested in Fave on Jul 22, 2020.
Pine Labs - Acquisitions
Pine Labs has acquired QwikCilver Solutions on Mar 19, 2019. They acquired QwikCilver Solutions for $110 Million.
Pine Labs - Competitors
Pine Labs Top Competitors are :-
Pine Labs - Challenges Faced
India’s digital payments' growth story has grabbed several eyeballs from international agencies as well as tech giants. From revolutionizing the use of QR codes to Unified Payments Interface (UPI) to enabling point-of-sale via mobile-like devices etc, the innovation in Indian digital payments' industry has awed the world.
While most of these innovative and disruptive ideas haven’t reaped profits, but point-of-sale (PoS) player Pine Labs did in 2017. This, however, is not the case any more. Being one of the few Indian startups generating profits in FY17, the company spiralled into losses back in FY18. Continuing the trend in FY19 results, Pine Labs reported net loss of INR 13.5 Cr for the year, as against INR 2.5 Cr net loss in FY18.
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Pine Labs - Future Plans
Digital retail payments platform Pine Labs is gearing up for the next phase of its journey. It is planning to bring in the latest solutions that aim at proving better customer experience, foray into new markets and categories, and eventually go for an initial public offering (IPO) which may happen over the next two years.
In the next couple of years, the Noida-based firm is also expecting the total payment volume (TPV) on its transactions to rise more than four-fold to $100 billion from $23 billion.
That would put Pine Labs in the league of US-based financial and merchant services firm Square Inc, whose gross payment volume in the most recent fiscal period amounted to $84.65 billion, up from 65.35 billion in 2017, according to data platform Statista.
“I think for the last 18 months, we are taking the journey of becoming a platform company,” said Bindra, who before joining Pine Labs in 2015 led Visa’s global product and solutions group in San Francisco.
In the next phase, Pine Labs is getting into providing loans to merchants in partnerships with banks as well as NBFCs and package other services such as insurance with it. It will also provide goods and services tax (GST) payments on behalf of these merchants.
Pine Labs - FAQs
What does Pine Labs do?
Pine Labs is an Indian merchant platform company that provides financing and last-mile retail transaction technology.
What is hardware ID in Pine Labs?
The Hardware ID is a unique identification number for your machine. To activate your licence, you will need to provide this number.
How does Pine Labs make money?
Pine Labs earns its revenue by leasing its devices to and from subscription charges, while its payment gateway partners and merchant banks impose transaction charges.
How does Pine Labs work?
Pine Labs is an Indian merchant platform company that provides financing and last-mile retail transaction technology, founded in 1998. The company has more than 70,000 retailers across India, including major retail outlets such as Mark's and Spencer's Retail, Pantaloons, Shoppers Stop and Westside.
Author: Sarika Anand
Source : https://startuptalky.com/pine-labs-success-story/
Date : 2021-04-10T14:38:00.000Z