Kunal Shah, the founder of Indian fintech giant CRED, has announced he is stepping back from his role as CEO of the company. Taking charge as interim CEO is Miten, who has been with CRED since 2020, leading strategy and finance. Shah will continue as a shareholder in the company and has clarified that while his role is changing, his commitment to CRED remains the same.
Alongside this leadership transition, Shah revealed he will be joining Meta to lead WhatsApp globally, one of the most widely used messaging platforms in the world.
CRED’s Journey: From $1M to ₹3,200 Crore in Revenue
CRED was born out of a simple question Shah asked himself after exiting FreeCharge between 2015 and 2018: why can’t trust be rewarded? Starting with $1 million of his own money, he launched CRED to give people a reason to pay their credit card bills on time.
What followed was a decade of relentless building. Between 2019 and 2025, CRED grew its membership base from zero to 17 million users by designing a system where incentives matched user behaviour. The company built multiple products during COVID lockdowns, raised over $900 million from global investors, and completed four ESOP buybacks for its employees. It also secured a full stack of regulatory licences and expanded into payments, lending, insurance, commerce, wealth management, and credit cards, scaling annual revenue to approximately $325 million, or around ₹3,200 crore.
2026: Profitability and a Fresh $900M Raise
This year has already been a landmark one for CRED. The company posted its first profitable quarter, a significant milestone for a startup that was for years questioned about its business model. It also raised another $900 million from Meta in a mix of primary and secondary capital, and announced its fifth ESOP buyback, continuing its commitment to rewarding the team that built it.
Meta, as part of this deal, comes in as a minority investor in CRED and will have no access to member data, Shah clarified.
On his move to Meta, Shah expressed excitement about the road ahead for WhatsApp, noting that despite how far the platform has come, the gap between what it is today and what it could eventually become remains enormous. He thanked Will, who previously led WhatsApp, for building something the world quietly depends on and for making this transition seamless. Shah said he looks forward to working with Mark, Chris, and the broader Meta leadership team.
With Miten stepping in to lead day-to-day operations and Shah moving to a shareholder role, CRED enters its next phase with a profitable foundation, a large funding round, and a leadership team that has been part of the journey for years. For Shah, the shift marks the beginning of a new challenge at a global scale.
