Pine Labs IPO: 'Don't Want To Be Lonely' — CEO Explains 40% Valuation Cut

Leading fintech major Pine Labs is all set to go public in India's primary market with the three-day subscription window opening for investors on Friday, Nov. 7, 2025. The price band for the book-built issue is set at Rs Rs 210-221 per share, which peg its post-issue market capitalisation at Rs 25,400 crore or over $2.88 billion. Notably, the Noida-based technology firm has trimmed its valuation by 40% from $5 billion decided earlier.

Ahead of the public issue, B. Amrish Rau, Chairman, Managing Director, and chief executive officer of Pine Labs told NDTV Profit in an exclusive interview that the reason behind the significant trim in valuation is because the company's core philosophy lies in 'taking the community along' and pricing the IPO in such a way that it makes it easier for investors to participate.

According to the top official, the top five Indian banks, top five retailers, top three quick comm companies and, top three online companies are all are clients of Pine Labs. "This is not just because we've built great products, but also in general, the community believes that it's a good company and these are nice people. If you go to Bengaluru or Delhi, the one thing you'll always get to hear from the investor and founder community is that these are people we like to be associated with," CEO Rau told NDTV Profit.

Rau explained that when the company was going ahead with the IPO plans, they didn't want to forget that. "We believe that it takes a village to take a company to IPO and at this stage, we want to take everybody along as we go forward. Its very important that we price the IPO in such a way that we can take the community along with us and that's exactly how we've priced our IPO," he explained.

"At the start of the process, we kept the enabling number on the offer-for-sale that our investors would want to do. Our investors believe that they would continue to hold on. We've reduced the OFS size significantly as our investors did not want to sell it at that price that we decided on earlier," he added.

Pine Labs IPO seeks to raise Rs 3,900 crore. It comprises a fresh issue of 9.41 crore shares aggregating Rs 2,080 crore and an OFS of 8.23 crore shares worth Rs 1,819.91 crore. Earlier, it was looking to mobilise Rs 2,600 crore via fresh issue, with an OFS component of up to 14.78 crore shares by existing shareholders. Pine Labs is also regarded as one of India’s largest digital payments and merchant commerce platforms.

D-Street analysts believe that a sharp cut right before going public may cause concerns from a shareholder perspective. However, Rau stressed that they wanted make it 'very easy for people join them in the IPO'. "This has been a philosophy right through the time we built. In our shareholder base, we have some great founders who actually joined us on the journey."

"One of the clear philosophies that we've had for so many years is that if you bring the community along with you then you're in a much better place. When you price the product on certain levels, it makes it very easy for new investors to come in and join on the journey," he explained.

"We don't want to be lonely, we want to be friendly and take everybody along," Rau added. Pine Labs is a leading Indian merchant commerce platform and provides point-of-sale solutions, payment processing, and merchant financing services.

Under the OFS, Peak XV Partners, London-based Actis, PayPal, Mastercard Asia/Pacific, Temasek through Macritchie Investments, Invesco, Madison India Capital, MW XO Digital Finance Fund Holdco, Lone Cascade LP, Sofina Ventures S.A. and Pine Labs co-founder Lokvir Kapoor will divest their shares.

The bidding window for the Pine Labs IPO shuts on Nov. 11. The basis of allotment is expected to be finalised on Nov.12, followed by the initiation of refunds and credit of shares to demat accounts on Nov. 13. Shares are tentatively scheduled to list on the BSE and NSE on Nov. 14.

The lot size for retail investors is 67 shares, requiring a minimum investment of Rs 14,807. Axis Capital, Morgan Stanley India Company, Citigroup Global Markets India, JP Morgan India, Jefferies India are the book running lead managers while KFin Technologies is the registrar for the IPO.

Pine Labs IPO joins a wave of listings in a busy primary market, with share sales by other new-age, tech-driven firms such as Groww, Lenskart, and boAt. India ranks as the third-largest IPO venue this year, with fundraising expected to exceed 2024's record $20.5 billion (Rs 18.2 lakh crore) amid blockbuster listings by companies such as LG Electronics India.

In FY25, Pine Labs processed payments worth Rs 11.42 lakh crore in gross transaction value (GTV) across 5.68 billion transactions. As of June 30, 2025, its platforms were used by over 9.88 lakh merchants, 716 consumer brands and enterprises, and 177 financial institutions.

"Our GTV compounded by 60% in the last three years and number of transactions compounded at 50%. The number of merchants, banks, and fintech which have signed or partnered with us have grown by 30% in last three years," CEO Rau told NDTV Profit.

Pine Labs reported a sharp turnaround in the first quarter of FY26. Out of the Rs 2,080 crore that Pine Labs aims to raise through the IPO, over Rs 750 crore is earmarked to expand its technology infrastructure and over Rs 53O crore will be used to repay or prepay borrowings and trimming debt.

Pine Lab's India-listed peers include fintech giant Paytm-owner One 97 Communications Ltd. and Zaggle Prepaid Ocean Services Ltd. Overseas, it will compete with fintechs like Ayden, Shopify, Block and Marqeta.