SBI Mutual Fund surpasses 5% holding in Pine Labs by purchasing 2.4 lakh shares

SBI Mutual Fund has bought 2.4 lakh additional shares of payments company Pine Labs. With this purchase, its total holding has increased from 5.73 crore shares to 5.75 crore shares, crossing the 5% ownership mark.

Since its stake has gone above 5%, the fund had to officially disclose this under Sebi’s takeover rules.

SBI Mutual Fund was also one of the main (anchor) investors in Pine Labs’ ₹1,753 crore pre-IPO investment round.

Pine Labs got listed on the stock exchange in November last year. The company currently has a market value of about $2.4 billion on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). When it first listed, it was valued at around $2.9 billion, which was lower than its earlier private valuation of $5 billion.

Founded in 1998, Pine Labs started by providing digital payment solutions to fuel stations. Later, it expanded into point-of-sale machines for banks and digital payments. After card and UPI payments grew rapidly in 2015-16, the company invested in smart payment terminals, QR-based UPI payments, and tap-and-go solutions.

In 2022-23, Pine Labs entered the fintech infrastructure space by acquiring Setu and expanded into bill payments through the Bharat Bill Payment System. Recently, it has focused more on credit-based payment options like EMI and buy-now-pay-later at merchant stores.

The company has raised funds from major investors such as Mastercard, PayPal, Actis, Sofina, and Vitruvian Partners.

Earlier this month, OpenAI announced that it has integrated its AI platform with Pine Labs to enable “agentic commerce,” where AI agents can search, recommend, and complete purchases for users.

At 12:20 PM, Pine Labs shares were trading 3.1% lower at ₹192.70 on the BSE.