This includes a $15 million Esop (employee stock ownership programme) buyback at the Noida and Singapore-based firm ahead of its planned IPO (initial public offering) in the US.
Last month, it had closed a $150 million financing from Alpha Wave Global (previously Falcon Edge) which also included a secondary share sale. The company led by fintech veteran Amrish Rau was valued at over $5 billion post this funding.
On Monday, Rau declined to comment on the new investment. Spokesperson of Vitruvian Partners couldn’t immediately be reached.
Vitruvian Partners had participated in edtech major Byju’s $800-million funding earlier this month.
Prior to this, top startup entrepreneurs like Unacademy’s Gaurav Munjal, MPL’s Sai Srinivas Kiran G, Swiggy’s Sriharsha Majety, and Dream11’s Harsh Jain have also invested in Pine Labs, according to documents and people briefed on the matter.
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In a secondary transaction, existing investors sell their shares to new investors and the money does not go to company coffers.
Push in IPO plans:
Pine Labs, which filed for a confidential IPO filing in the US in January this year, has had to postpone its IPO plans to the second half of the current year owing to the rout in global markets.
Pine Labs is looking to raise around $500 million from the public markets, at a valuation of $6-7 billion.
“They (Pine Labs) are now aiming at a public offering in the second half of 2022,” a person aware of its plans said.
The recent volatility in the public markets owing to the Russia-Ukraine crisis as well as a global slowdown in technology stocks has spooked public market investors, and caused several Indian startups including the likes of Delhivery, Mobikwik and others to push their IPO plans.
Focus on new growth segments:
While Pine Labs is extending its timeline for an international listing, it is continuing to focus on growth and entering newer fintech segments.
ET had reported on February 2 that Pine Labs was in talks to acquire API-based infrastructure company Setu in a cash and equity deal for $70-100 million.
The acquisition was in line to get access to Setu’s account aggregator framework to help Pine Labs improve time-to-market for its planned financial services launch.
An account aggregator (AA) is a type of RBI regulated entity that helps an individual securely and digitally access and share information from one financial institution to another in the AA network.
Towards the end of last year, Pine Labs also made its foray in the payment gateway segment with the launch of Plural for direct-to-consumer businesses.
During the company’s last fundraise in February, Rau had also said the company is seeing sharp growth from international markets, and will continue to focus on expansion.
