Global payment majors PayPal and Mastercard gain big post Pine Labs IPO

Pine Labs’ private market journey had two very large payment companies grabbing a slice of its capitalisation table: American digital payments major PayPal and global card payment processor Mastercard. While they are not large fintech investors in India, both companies took positions in Pine Labs, betting on the larger domestic digital payments journey.

While Mastercard has doubled the value of its investments in six years, PayPal, which joined Pine Labs as an investor in 2019, is sitting on almost seven times returns.

Neither company has sold its entire shareholding in Pine Labs, so a large part of the gains remains on paper.

Back in 2019, PayPal had invested $23 million in Pine Labs, when it was valued at just shy of a billion dollars. In the follow-on round, Mastercard joined the capitalisation table with a $70 million infusion. Post that round, the Gurugram-based payment major saw its valuation jump to $1.7 billion.

Nearly six years on, both payment companies sold around 1% of their shareholding in the Pine Labs IPO. At the current market capitalisation of $3.2 billion, the two companies are sitting on sizable gains on their investments.

PayPal’s stake is worth Rs 1,374 crore or $154 million, while Mastercard’s holding post IPO is valued at close to Rs 1,200 crore ($135 million).

Pine Labs shares were trading at around Rs 270 in early morning trade on the BSE. The company had achieved a private market valuation of $5 billion in 2022, but went public with a valuation of $2.9 billion. Currently, its market capitalisation is at more than $3.3 billion.