Trading startup Pine Labs has received approval from a Singapore court to merge its local entity with its Indian subsidiary and transfer all its assets and properties, effectively enabling the company to relocate its operations to India.
Pine Labs disclosed the court’s ruling in a recent regulatory filing accessed by TechCrunch.
Pine Labs offers merchants a range of products and services, reminiscent of cloud-connected point-of-sale machines and working capital. It is backed by Peak XV, Fidelity, Invesco, Temasek, PayPal and Alpha Wave and is valued at over $5 billion.
It is among the few Indian start-ups that have recently moved their headquarters to India. Meesho, Zepto, Flipkart, Razorpay and Udaan are also in the technique of evaluating a similar move. Fintech startups PhonePe and Groww have already moved their overseas holdings to India.
Pine Labs declined to comment.
An investor in Indian startups said corporations are shifting their headquarters to India as startups with valuations below $20 billion are highly unlikely to get significant support from analysts in developed markets, leading to subdued demand from institutional investors.
“But everything is more expensive in India because there is so much demand for technology companies,” said the investor, who asked not to be identified and remain anonymous. Entrepreneur Gokul Rajaram made a similar statement about software corporations in India.
The transfer is expected to help Pine Labs “achieve business synergies and greater economies of scale,” the startup explained in a court filing. It can even help the company “achieve cost savings” and “simplify its shareholding structure.”