Pine Labs, a business-to-business (B2B) payments firm, has launched Dukaan Studio, a new venture aimed at helping kirana store owners modernise their stores. The initiative would help kirana stores across India to receive a facelift by offering several customised products such as shopping bags, visiting cards, offer danglers, tent cards, decor lights, stationery and t-shirts. However, this facility is only available for Pine Labs partners with valid point-of-sale (POS) IDs. It was not immediately clear whether the service would be available free of charge to the kirana stores partnering with Pine Labs.
Kirana store owners can go to Dukaan Studio’s website, select the products they would like to have and enter their delivery details. Then, a Dukaan Studio support executive would reach out to them to finalise the order. The move is expected to help kirana stores upgrade their brand image and modernise their stores, as they compete with larger retail chains.
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Dukaan Studio comes at a time when the fintech unicorn saw its net loss rise 4.5 per cent to Rs 259.1 crore from Rs 247.8 crore in the financial year 2021 (FY21). At the same time, the fintech’s revenue from operations went from Rs 726.1 crore in FY21 to Rs 1,017 crore in FY22, a jump of 1.4X.
Founded in 1998 by Lokvir Kapoor and headed by Amrish Rau, Pine Labs offers POS payments in India, Malaysia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It competes with the likes of Razorpay, PayU and Mswipe, among others. The start-up has raised over a billion dollars in funding to date and is backed by marquee investors such as Alpha Wave Ventures, MasterCard, Sequoia Capital and State Bank of India. Earlier this year, Pine Labs acquired the proprietary enterprise platform of Bengaluru-based Saluto Wellness to boost its issuing business under the Qwikcilver brand. Last year, it also acquired Bengaluru-based fintech infrastructure start-up Setu in a $70 Mn-$75 million deal to strengthen its offerings.
