Shah founded CRED in 2018 for people with high credit scores. After eight years, CRED currently has 1.7 crore highly creditworthy members and processes over 40 per cent of credit card bill payments in India. Its lending business has grown to Rs 24,000 crore in assets under management
Fintech platform CRED founder Kunal Shah, who built one of unique systems that works for creditworthy people, will head the global messaging platform WhatsApp, joining the illustrious group of Indians who run the top-notch multinational companies. The new global role will add another feather in Shah’s cap and expose him to a larger and highly competitive market.
Shah founded CRED in 2018 for people with high credit scores. After eight years, CRED currently has 1.7 crore highly creditworthy members and processes over 40 per cent of credit card bill payments in India. Its lending business has grown to Rs 24,000 crore in assets under management.
CRED clinched a deal with investors led by Meta to raise Rs 8,550 crore in its Series H round. This investment has increased CRED’s valuation from Rs 38,819 crore to Rs 43,239 crore, underlining his venture’s humongous success. Though Kunal quit CRED to join WhatsApp, he will retain his personal shareholding in the company.
The success of CRED — his third entrepreneurial venture after PaisaBack in 2009 and Freecharge in 2010 — has made Shah a poster boy of the Indian start-up community. The story of the philosophy student building a multi-billion enterprise from scratch serves as an incredible inspiration for Indian youth.
Shah’s success in his business ventures — despite being a student of philosophy and a dropout from management college — highlights the cardinal fact that an erudite entrepreneur must understand society’s need and build his offering around it.
Similarly, Shah learnt the art of understanding people’s needs and offered solutions. The CRED founder will be using his skills to strengthen WhatsApp in India and other developing countries, which contribute most of its three billion users. Shah’s ability to understand the needs of people from developing countries could help Meta in taking WhatsApp to the next stage of growth.
