Kunal Shah is WhatsApp CEO as Meta leads $900 million financing in Cred

Cred founder Kunal Shah will replace Will Cathcart as the global CEO of WhatsApp, marking an unprecedented move by an Indian startup founder into a global technology leadership role.

The development is part of WhatsApp parent Meta leading an Rs 8,550 crore ($900 million) funding round in the Indian fintech firm, as it looks to increasingly embed payments and commerce in the messaging platform.

The appointment puts Shah at the helm of a globally dominant messaging platform that has around 500 million users in India and around 3 billion subscribers worldwide.


The funding comprises about $400 million in the secondary sale of shares by existing shareholders, while the remaining $500 million will be ploughed into the company.

Cred will receive ad credits worth an additional $100 million that can be used on Meta platforms, according to a person aware of the deal terms.

Cred will be valued at around Rs 43,239 crore ($4.5 billion) following the investment, as per a company statement.

Besides fresh capital, the round gives Cred a strategic backer as it prepares for its next phase of growth, while giving Meta an entry into the cap table of one of India's most prominent consumer fintech startups.

"The secondary sale is being conducted by Cred's team and shareholders," said a person with knowledge of the matter. "Early and large investors will be given preference to sell. Investors are liquidating around 15-20% of their stakes."

As part of the transaction, Shah joined Meta's global leadership team on Monday, exiting Cred. He is also giving up his board seat, while retaining a personal shareholding of less than 20% in the Bengaluru-based startup. Miten Sampat, who has led strategy and finance at Cred since 2020, takes over as interim CEO with immediate effect.

Announcing the appointment on Facebook, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg said Shah brings a builder mentality and global perspective that will serve him well in running the world’s biggest messaging app.


“The delta between WhatsApp today and its full potential is massive,” Shah posted on X.

Meta will be a minority investor and will neither get a board seat nor access to Cred’s customer information, the latter said. Even after the funding, Shah will remain the single largest individual shareholder of the firm.

Also Read: 'Kunal was the clear choice': Meta's Chris Cox on WhatsApp leadership change

Fresh strategy

The deal brings together two important strands in India’s consumer internet — Meta’s long-running efforts to build payments and commerce around WhatsApp, and Cred’s attempt to expand from a credit card bill payments platform into a broader financial services business for affluent and creditworthy customers.

“Kunal has an uncanny ability to understand both the pulse and aspirations of people,” said Amrish Rau, chief executive of merchant payment company Pine Labs and an angel investor in Cred. “As WhatsApp continues its global expansion, his deep empathy and product intuition will be invaluable in helping the platform serve diverse communities around the world.”

Multiple industry insiders said that under Shah’s leadership, Meta intends to push its commerce and fintech play in India, its largest market.

WhatsApp Pay, its UPI payment platform, currently processes 100 million transactions monthly, against 23 billion by the entire ecosystem.

“India is WhatsApp’s biggest market and now, as the head of WhatsApp, Kunal will play a bigger, critical role in pushing the platform deeper for both payments and commerce in India,” said Vishwas Patel, chairman of Payments Council of India, the largest grouping of Indian payment firms. “Also, Kunal has built a great product in Cred, which will now have more money to grow its lending and payments business faster.”

For Shah, the move marks a major transition from building two fintech startups — FreeCharge and Cred — to taking charge of WhatsApp, one of Meta’s most important global products. Shah had founded FreeCharge and eventually sold it to Snapdeal for $400 million in 2015. He started Cred in 2018 as a members-only platform rewarding users for paying credit card bills.

Also Read: Meet Kunal Shah, serial entrepreneur and Meta's pick to lead WhatsApp

Impact on Cred

Cred counts Peak XV Partners, GIC, Ribbit Capital and Tiger Global as its other major investors. Since inception, it has raised around $948 million in equity funding.

The transaction comes ahead of a planned public listing by Cred. The leadership transition also signals the company moving from a founder-led phase into a more institutional setup as it scales payments, lending, wealth, insurance and other financial services. The company has diversified into three apps — Kuvera, Cash by Cred and parent app Cred.

While Kuvera is into wealth management, Cash by Cred offers consumer loans, and Cred continues to focus on credit card bill payments, commerce and UPI payments.

Also Read: Who is Will Cathcart? WhatsApp leader exits after steering it through privacy battles, monetisation push

ET first reported in April last year that Cred was in talks to raise fresh capital at a 40% lower valuation as it sought to align its private market worth with a potential public market pricing. In June, Cred announced it raised Rs 617 crore from GIC and other existing investors at a valuation of $3.5 billion, a 45% cut from the $6.4 billion at which it had raised capital in 2022.

The Meta-led financing takes Cred’s valuation above its last round, though still below its 2022 peak. It also comes at a time when several late-stage fintech companies are preparing for public market scrutiny, with investors placing greater emphasis on revenue quality, sustainable growth, and a clear path to profitability.

Cred’s operating performance has improved since the earlier markdown, though losses remain high. For FY25, the company reported a consolidated operating revenue of Rs 2,735 crore, up 16% year-on-year, while operating losses narrowed 51% to Rs 298 crore. Net loss narrowed about 11.5% to Rs 1,461 crore during the year. The company is yet to declare its FY26 financials.

Total payment value rose 23% to Rs 8.5 lakh crore in FY25, while monthly transacting users increased 14.5% to 12.6 million. Cred had also said its average revenue per user rose to Rs 2,000, with nearly 45% of active members using three or more products on the platform.

Since its founding, Cred has expanded into unsecured personal loans, secured lending products such as loans against mutual funds, prepaid wallets, UPI payments, insurance, credit score tracking, and personal finance management.

The company on Monday said it has 17 million registered members and processes more than 40% of credit card bill payments in India. Its lending business has scaled to Rs 24,000 crore in managed assets for partner financial institutions.