Kunal Shah, who founded India-based fintech firm Cred in 2018, has been named as the global CEO of WhatsApp by Meta. The development aligns with Meta becoming a stakeholder in Cred with an investment of $900 million — which would bump up the startup’s valuation to $4.5 billion. The development was confirmed on Monday by both, Shah as well as Mark Zuckerberg.
The investment into Cred gives Meta a minority stake in the Bengaluru-based company, that offers rewards-laden credit card management services, However, Meta will not get any access to Cred’s customer data.
Shah’s WhatsApp moment
Meta is deepening its footprint in India, it appears. Its decision to appoint Shah as the global CEO of WhatsApp comes just weeks after billionaire Mukesh Ambani building an AI data centre for the company in Jamnagar, Gujarat made it to the headlines.
Over the years, Shah earned himself the reputation of being an avid advocate of entrepreneurship in India. Talking about roping him in as the WhatsApp global CEO, Zuckerberg also cited Cred’s journey from zero to a unicorn as a report card outlining Shah’s caliber.
Prior to launching Cred, Shah had founded other fintech platforms including PaisaBack and FreeCharge between 2009 and 2015. Before launching Cred, he served as the Chief Strategy Officer at Indian e-commerce platform Snapdeal.
As per Zuckerberg, “He (Shah) brings the kind of builder mentality and global perspective that will serve him well in running the world’s biggest messaging app.”
It is noteworthy that India is the only region where Meta has rolled-out in-app payment services within WhatsApp. Perhaps, with Shah joining WhatsApp as the CEO, Meta could integrate WhatsApp payment options for other countries as well. Nothing concrete is known about this for now.
Meanwhile, Will Cathcart, who served as the head of WhatsApp for the last seven years will be transitioning into a new role within Meta.
Souce: Facebook/ Mark Zuckerberg
These changes that Meta is introducing in its internal organization comes as the company goes bullish on adopting artificial intelligence (AI) for effective day-to-day tasks. Just last month, the company laid off 8,000 employees citing a pivot towards AI in order to stay more competitive in the evolving, advanced tech-driven market conditions.
What does this mean for Cred?
Since being founded in 2018, Cred grew in valuation to $325 million (roughly Rs. 3,200 crore) in annual revenue across services including lending, insurance, commerce, and credit cards.
With Shah taking a step back from his role as the CEO of Cred. Miten Sampat, the head of strategy and finance at Cred since 2020, will be taking up the role of the interim CEO of the company.
Commenting on the development Sampat said, “CRED’s impact among India’s most creditworthy is clear, we now serve 17M members & process $100B in TPV. Meta’s $900M minority investment is a booster in our plans to build an enduring institution with an eventual public listing. Meta will be a passive financial investor with no-access to customer data.”
As per official figures, the platform caters to a userbase of 17 million members.
