Point-of-sale (POS) technology provider Pine Labs agreed on Tuesday to buy India-based gift card technology provider Qwikcilver in a $110m deal, enabling conglomerate Sistema and e-commerce firm Amazon to exit.
Founded in 2007, Qwikcilver has developed technology that enables retail and corporate customers in India, the Middle East and Southeast Asia to create, process and distribute their own gift cards, for use in vouchers, promotions or as part of an employee benefits scheme.
Pine Labs launched its own gift card business, Pine Perks, in 2015, and it is used by some 600 organisations across the banking, insurance, manufacturing, pharmaceutical and telecommunications industries.
The company plans to integrate Qwikcilver’s brand-focused platform with its merchant-focused payment service to create a business with a customer base of more than 250 brands and retailers, as well as roughly 1,500 enterprise customers.
Vicky Bindra, Pine Labs’ CEO, said: “While Pine Labs has a strong merchant network, Qwikcilver has market-leading processing and distribution capability. We are confident that both teams’ deep domain experience will accelerate our vision of building a world-class merchant-centric ecosystem.”
Sistema’s Asia Fund led a $10m funding round for Qwikcilver in 2016, investing alongside Amazon subsidiary Amazon Asia-Pacific and venture capital firms Accel India and Helion Ventures.
Amazon Asia-Pacific had previously led Qwikcilver’s $10m series A round two years earlier, adding to an undisclosed amount of seed funding already sourced from Helion and Accel.