Pine Labs, a merchant commerce platform, today announced the appointment of Phanimohan Kalagara as its new CTO. This development comes at a time when the company has raised nearly $800 million and is now looking to make inroads into the online payments space with the launch of Plural.

Kalagara is a MS in Computer Science from Utah State University and has over two decades of experience of working with companies in the United States and India. He has extensive experience in the field of technology having worked in E-commerce, Financial Technology, and the CAD/CAM industries. He also brings expertise in emerging technologies like Virtual Reality.

B. Amrish Rau, CEO, Pine Labs, said, “We have made several new appointments in the past one year to bolster our technology capabilities. 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. I would also like to acknowledge the role of his predecessor Sanjeev Kumar who will now move into a new role within the company and head the R&D vertical.”

Prior to joining Pine Labs, Kalagara was with India’s homegrown e-commerce company Flipkart where he was the SVP of Product and Engineering. He has also spent 12 years with fintech company PayPal.

Phanimohan Kalagara, CTO, Pine Labs, said, “With Pine Labs, I see a massive opportunity to make 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."

Pine Labs is scaling its popular Buy Now Pay Later proposition to international markets.