CORPORATE
Meta’s $900-million investment in CRED to scale up its payments and business services
- IBJ Bureau
- Jun 23, 2026
Meta Platforms will invest $900 million in Bengaluru-based fintech start-up CRED, valuing it at $4.5 billion.
Besides, CRED founder Kunal Shah will head WhatsApp globally, the companies have said.
India is WhatsApp’s largest market, with more than 50 crore users, and the platform is expanding beyond messaging into payments and business services in the country.
Will Cathcart, the current head of WhatsApp, will move to a new role within Meta after leading the messaging service for seven years, MetaCEO Mark Zuckerberg has said in a Facebook post.
Meta’s investment is one of the largest into India’s financial technology sector in recent years.
The valuation is higher than the $3.5 billion in CRED’s previous funding round in 2025, but lower than its peak of $6.4 billion in 2022.
The deal gives Meta a minority stake in CRED without allowing it access to CRED’s customer data, CRED has said.
Founded in 2018, CRED operates a members-only platform for consumers with high credit scores, through which it offers products spanning payments, lending, insurance, wealth management and lifestyle services.
According to CRED, it serves 1.7 crore members each month, processes more than 40 per cent of India’s credit card bill payments and manages over Rs 24,000 crore of lending assets for partner financial institutions.
Miten Sampat, who has led strategy and finance at CRED since 2020, has been appointed its interim CEO.
Report By
View Reporter News