Pine Labs acquires Singapore’s Fave in $45m deal

Southeast Asian fintech platform Fave has been acquired by Indian merchant platform Pine Labs in a cash and stock deal valued at over US$45 million.

Prior to the deal, Fave had a post-money valuation of US$34.5 million after its series C round, according to data from VentureCap Insights. Following its 2018 series B round, the startup was valued at US$73.8 million.

Fave founder Joel Neoh / Photo credit: Fave

With the acquisition, Indian consumers will be able to use Fave’s smart payments app later this year across 500,000 merchant network points powered by Pine Labs. Additionally, the founders of Fave will see their roles expanded to include leading the overall consumer platform for the group across Asia.

Fave will also be onboarding more than 100 new employees in Southeast Asia and India to accelerate its expansion across the two regions. It aims to continue introducing smart payment features through its platform.

“India has the digital advantage with a young demography, growing aspirational middle class with rising disposable income, and increasing digital savviness,” said Fave co-founder and CEO Joel Neoh. “We are confident that the APAC e-payments landscape will continue to achieve exponential growth in the coming decade.”

Founded in 1998, Pine Labs provides financing and last-mile retail transaction technology, as well as software for point-of-sale machines. It first expanded outside India in 2017, entering the Malaysian market with an exclusive partnership with CIMB Bank.

It was previously reported that Pine Labs was planning to go public. The company’s CEO, Amrish Rau, declined to comment on the matter to The Business Times but shared that part of its acquisition involves creating a share plan for the lead team “to ride the upside with us as we go forward.”