Pine Labs, the payments technology company backed by PayPal and Mastercard, won support from retail investors on Friday, ending its first day of trading 14% higher despite lowering the valuation of its $440 million IPO. This makes it India’s second-largest fintech listed company this year, after online brokerage Groww’s debut earlier this week with about $750 million.
The stock price started at Rs 242, rose to Rs 284 and settled at Rs 252 from the issue price of Rs 221. As a result, the Gurugram-based company has a market capitalization of 289 billion rupees (about $3.3 billion).
While this is a step down from Pine Labs’ undisclosed 2022 valuation of more than $5 billion, it’s still clear that investors support India’s growing efforts to take the Indian fintech model to the world.
Founded in 1998, Pine Labs has steadily expanded beyond India and now operates in 20 markets including Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, UAE, US and parts of Africa. The company, which started as a point-of-sale terminal provider, has since evolved into a broader payment platform that supports bill payments, account aggregator transactions, and a variety of merchant and acquisition services.
In India, Pine Labs competes with the likes of Razorpay, Paytm and Walmart-owned PhonePe. The company turned a profit in the June quarter, with a net profit of 47.86 million rupees (approximately $540,000), compared with a loss of 278.89 million rupees a year earlier. Operating revenue increased 17.9% year-on-year to 6.16 billion rupees (approximately $69 million), with overseas operations accounting for approximately 15% of total revenue, increasing from 795.97 million rupees in the same period last year to 943.25 million rupees (approximately $11 million).
“We will never stop being a startup,” Pine Labs CEO Amrish Rau said at the company’s listing ceremony. “Now that we are a listed company, [that word] We can’t hear it in our hall. ”
Existing investors including Peak XV Partners, Temasek Holdings, PayPal, and Mastercard were among those who sold some of their stakes during the listing.
“Pine Labs never intended to compete on price,” said Shailendra Singh, managing director of Peak XV Partners. “The company always wanted to compete with a better proposition, and we know this company will continue to compound because the business had such a strong moat. That shaped our worldview of how we think about companies, be patient, and mature our ecosystem.”
Peak XV Partners, which was spun off from Sequoia Capital in 2023, first invested in Pine Labs in 2009 at the height of the global financial crisis. The company is also seeing back-to-back partial public exits this week as Pine Labs is the second portfolio company to go public after Grow, which debuted on Indian exchanges with a 12% gain and ended its first trading day above its issue price of ₹100.29.
Pine Labs’ market debut is part of a broader wave of India’s listing engine gaining steam. From technology and fintech to e-commerce and manufacturing, an increasing number of startups are choosing to list on the back of strong domestic investor appetite, easing of interest rate conditions, and regulatory moves to promote listing. Globally, financials have topped the IPO sector this year, with IPOs worth $34.34 billion by 2025, more than double the $14.05 billion raised in the same period in 2024, according to Dealogic.
With its public debut, Pine Labs plans to continue expanding its geographic footprint while deepening its presence in India with new products and services targeted at India’s rapidly expanding internet-driven consumer base.
“Our core business will continue to expand. Our outer moat will be strengthened and profits will grow,” Lau said.
