Merchant commerce firm Pine Labs buys API fintech startup Setu

Pine Labs, a merchant commerce platform, has announced the acquisition of Bengaluru-based API fintech startup Setu.

The financial details of the deal haven’t been disclosed.

This is the third acquisition announced by Pine Labs this year.

Setu builds a low-cost, modular API infrastructure so that businesses can go live with a fintech product or service in a matter of days. It works with account aggregator partners which are non-banking financial companies operating under the NBFC-AA license from the Reserve Bank of India.

It enables the consolidation of all financial data of users at a single location and allows users to access services quickly.

The fintech startup claims its APIs are being used across diverse industry verticals today, including startups, retail enterprises, banks, insurance, and lending companies. Setu’s existing and emerging use cases cut across multiple digital ecosystems, from Aadhaar eSign to BBPS bill payment, payment collection integration via WhatsApp, FASTag payment collection and more.

“Setu will make an incredible addition to the Pine Labs platform for a few reasons. Embedded financial services and open banking are going to be the way forward and the embedded finance market value is expected to exceed $138 bn by 2026 as APIs are intensifying the competitive fintech landscape,” said B Amrish Rau, CEO, Pine Labs. “Setu helps their customers, merchants, and brands build beautiful experiences, so consumers can engage with payments and financial services on their terms,” Rau added.

“Pine Labs’ network of merchants and issuers coupled with our API integration prowess will help achieve great results in personal finance management, monitoring loans to predict default rates, credit underwriting, and several other areas,” said Sahil Kini, co-founder and CEO at Setu.

Pine Labs is a merchant commerce omnichannel platform operating across India and Southeast Asia. Its tech-first approach to digital payments and focus on simplification at the front end aims to help many businesses embrace fintech products at scale.

Its payments cloud-based software Plural represents a one-stop payments destination across channels. Plural is designed to deliver secure and frictionless online payment experiences to the end-user, powered by an advanced tech stack that can augment an existing online business or build an all-new e-commerce payment setup from the ground up.

Incorporated in Singapore, the key investors of Pine Labs include Sequoia India, Actis Capital, Temasek, PayPal and Mastercard.