Pine Labs appoints former Flipkart executive Phanimohan Kalagara as CTO ahead of IPO

Phanimohan Kalagara, CTO, Pine Labs

Merchant platform company Pine Labs said on October 20 that it has roped in Phanimohan Kalagara as its new Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

Prior to joining Pine Labs, Kalagara worked with Walmart-owned e-commerce player Flipkart where he was the SVP of Product and Engineering. He has also spent 12 years with the US-based online payments company PayPal, leading Product and Engineering.

In terms of his educational background, Kalagara is an M.S. in Computer Science from Utah State University. He has worked across verticals like E-commerce, Financial Technology, and the CAD/CAM industries

Commenting on the appointment, B Amrish Rau, CEO of Pine Labs, said, “We have made several new appointments in the past year to bolster our technology capabilities. I am delighted to welcome Phanimohan as the new CTO. Phani comes with a wealth of experience in Product and Engineering and is the right man to lead our Technology team during this exciting phase of growth for the company.”

Kalagara replaced Sanjeev Kumar who will now move to a new role within Pine Labs to head the R&D vertical.

“With Pine Labs, I see a massive opportunity to make a substantial difference to the future of merchant commerce in Asia. Looking forward to being part of this team that is set to shift the fintech landscape in Asia,” Kalagara said on his appointment.

These changes come at a time when the company is laying the groundwork to go public soon, eyeing a valuation of $6 billion.

Pine Labs also announced its foray into the online payments space on October 14 with a payments gateway platform named Plural. The company is also working on scaling up its Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) offering.

Founded in 1998, Pine Labs processes payments worth $30 million in a year. It serves over 150,000 merchants in 3,700 cities across Asia and the Middle East. It has also enabled its BNPL credit service to 150,000 outlets.