- Former PayU India executive Amrish Rau will take over as the CEO of the point-of-sale service provider PineLabs after the exit of Vicky Bindra.
Former PayU India executive Amrish Rau will take over as the point-of-sale service provider’s CEO, PineLabs, told ET multiple people conscious of the matter.
The development comes immediately after the exit of Vicky Bindra, who since May 2018 has been heading PineLabs. Rau’s appointment coincides with the company raising a funding round of $300 million led by Mastercard valuing it at $1.5-1.7 billion.
Rau was also in negotiations with Sequoia Capital for a funding round of $10-12 million for a venture in the retail point-of-sale market.
Rau announced last month that he was stepping down from the Naspers-owned PayU India, a business he’d helmed for about two and a half years. At the time, Rau had said it was “time to have another new experience,” in a series of tweets on the popular microblogging site, but hadn’t disclosed his upcoming plans.
Talking about the move, Pine Labs executive chairman Lokvir Kapoor said, “I’m excited to welcome Amrish to the Pine Labs team. With the capacity of Amrish to invent, check with networks and customers for choices, we assume that Pine Labs can be a true hub of global commerce. I would also like to thank Vicky who has set us firmly on an exciting journey of high growth. Vicky has encouraged us to explore new areas of business and develop organizational structures and processes to sustain those.
Rau worked as the head of the domestic arm of Naspers-owned PayU, stepping into the role almost immediately after selling homegrown payment service, CitrusPay, a venture he co-founded with Jitendra Gupta and Satyen Kothari to PayU in 2016 for $130 million.
Because it was an all-cash deal, a rarity in the Indian technology ecosystem, the transaction stood out at the time and was also one of the country’s largest venture capital-backed fintech transactions.
Together with co-founder Gupta, he steered the Naspers-owned Indian arm, valued at approximately $2.5 billion, from a payment gateway to newer areas such as consumer credit, among others, while making a series of strategic investments and acquisitions along the way.
In February last year, Rau stepped down as CEO of PayU India, with former Reliance executive Anirban Mukherjee taking over as the new country leader. Rau went on to oversee a broader role within the company, focusing on fintech partnerships and investments for the payments major.
