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Kunal Shah
CRED: Revolutionizing Credit Card Payments in India
Introduction CRED, founded by Kunal Shah in 2018, has rapidly grown to become a unicorn startup by revolutionizing the way Indians manage their credit card payments. The platform rewards users for paying their credit card bills on time with exclusive offers and discounts.
Growth and Success CRED’s innovative approach to incentivizing timely payments has garnered over 7.5 million users and processed billions in transactions. Their user-friendly app and focus on financial literacy have set them apart in the fintech sector.
Future Prospects With plans to expand their financial services and introduce new products, CRED is poised to continue its impressive growth trajectory, further solidifying its position as a leader in India’s fintech industry.
Dreamplug Technologies Pvt. Ltd. CRED is an Indian fintech company, based in Bangalore. Founded in 2018 by Kunal Shah, it is a reward-based credit card payments app. Cred also lets users make house rent payments and provides short-term credit lines. Cred has received criticism for being overvalued and lacking a sound monetization strategy.
History
Cred was founded in 2018 by Kunal Shah. By 2021, the company had onboarded over 5.9 million users and processed about 20% of all credit card bill payments in India.
Funding
Cred raised funding from DST Global, Sequoia Capital (India), and Tiger Global, among other investors, through the four rounds of private funding so far. Cred posted losses of ₹360.31 crore in the 2020 fiscal year (FY20), caused primarily due to high expenditure on marketing and advertising.
In October 2021, Cred started to seek new investors, reporting a $5.5 billion valuation, up from $2.2 billion recorded in April 2021.
Kunal Shah is also an investor in an AI led adtech influencer marketing platform Kofluence. The company had raised a pre-series funding of $4 Million as of 8 February 2022.
In June 2022, CRED raised $80 million in a Series F funding round led by Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, GIC. The Series F funding round will value the company at around $6.4 billion.
| Investor | Transaction Name | Fund Raised | Valuation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sequoia Capital India | Seed | $30M | Not Revealed |
| Sequoia Capital, RTP Ventures, and 25 others | Series A | $636K | |
| Sequoia Capital, Ribbit Capital, and seven others | Series B | $120M |  $450 Million |
| DST Global, Tiger Global Management, and seven others | Series C | $81M | $806 Million |
| Coatue, Insight Partners, and nine others | Series D | $215M | $2.2 Billion |
| Tiger Global Management, Marshall Wace, and eight others | Series E | $251M | $4.01 Billion |
| GIC Singapore, Tiger Global Management, and three others | Series F | $80M | $6.4 Billion |
Marketing
Cred became the official sponsor for the Indian Premier League for four years from 2020 to 2023. In 2021, Cred’s advertising content and videos, made in-house featuring Indian celebrities, generated significant discourse in news and social media due to its peculiarity, which was both criticized and praised.
Acquisitions
In 2021, Cred acquired expense management startup Happay in December and a liquor delivery startup HipBar.
In December 2022, Cred acquired a 100% stake in CreditVidya that offers lending as a service. This is to allow Cred to expand its customer base and ecosystem as CreditVidya, which caters to customers who do not have a credit score.
In July 2023, Cred acquihired savings and investment platform Spenny and expanded in the lending and wealthtech space further.
In February 2024, Cred acquired online wealth management startup Kuvera for an undisclosed amount. With this acquisition, Cred entered the into the mutual funds market.
Keywords: CRED, unicorn startup India, credit card payments, Kunal Shah, fintech India
