Amrish Rau, who along with his more storied co-founder Jitendra Gupta founded Citrus Pay, is now joining Pine Labs as CEO. Pine Labs is one of the earliest fintech companies in India, having established itself in the market through its popular Point-of-Sale products for merchants of all sizes. Rau, along with Jitendra Gupta, sold off their startup Citrus Pay to PayU India, in a deal that was considered among the largest of its kind in the Indian startup ecosystem at that time.
In a statement release to The Tech Portal, Pine Labs says, “Amrish brings fintech, entrepreneurial and corporate experience to his new role as Chief Executive Officer. He replaces Vicky Bindra who after a two-year successful stint as CEO is moving back to San Francisco. Bindra will continue to be an advisor to the company supporting strategic initiatives.”
Speaking of the transition Lokvir Kapoor, Executive Chairman, Pine Labs said, “I am excited to welcome Amrish to the Pine Labs family. With Amrish’s ability to innovate, seek out options with channels and customers we believe Pine Labs can be a true global commerce platform.”
From its beginnings as an offline retail payment provider a decade ago, Pine Labs has evolved into offering payment acceptance technology, stored value products, in-store consumer credit and other merchant solutions in India, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Today, the company claims to be the largest payments processor in Asia, with payments worth US$30 billion being processed per year and across 140,000 merchants across about 450,000 network points.
Initially starting as PoS machine provider, Pine Labs went on to develop its own product and software. Over time, the company transitioned to a unique cloud-based platform that enables it to offer a wide range of payment acceptance and merchant commerce solutions. Pine Labs’ stored value platform offers issuing, processing and distributing digital gift cards for corporate customers. Its customer base includes prominent large, mid-sized and small merchants across India, South East Asia and the Middle East.
The company counts the likes of Sequoia India, Actis Capital, Temasek, PayPal, Sofina and Mastercard as its financial backers.
