CRED is an Indian
fintech company, based in
Bangalore
Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...
. 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.
Kunal Shah describes Cred as being a TrustTech company rather than a FinTech, and that his motivation to start Cred comes from solving trust issues in the Indian society, which he believes is key to economic prosperity
Funding and financial results
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
A securities offering (or funding round or investment round) is a discrete round of investment, by which a business or other enterprise raises money to fund operations, expansion, a capital project, an acquisition, or some other business purpose.
...
led by Singapore's
sovereign wealth fund, GIC. The Series F funding round will value the company at around $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
In finance, a loan is the lending of money by one or more individuals, organizations, or other entities to other individuals, organizations, etc. The recipient (i.e., the borrower) incurs a debt and is usually liable to pay interest on that de ...
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
Wealth management (WM) or wealth management advisory (WMA) is an investment advisory service that provides financial management and wealth advisory services to a wide array of clients ranging from affluent to high-net-worth (HNW) and ultra-high- ...
startup
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...
''
Kuvera'' for an undisclosed amount. With this acquisition, Cred entered the into the mutual funds market.
References
External links
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{{FinTech in India
Indian companies established in 2018
Financial services companies established in 2018
Online financial services companies of India
Companies based in Bangalore
2018 establishments in Karnataka