Meta invests $900M in CRED, appoints founder Kunal Shah as new WhatsApp chief

Meta has invested $900 million in Indian fintech startup CRED and appointed its founder Kunal Shah as the new head of WhatsApp, replacing Will Cathcart who led the messaging app for seven years. The deal, announced Monday, includes a combination of primary and secondary share purchases that make Meta a minority investor in CRED.

India is WhatsApp's largest market with more than 500 million users, representing a significant share of the app's global base of over 3 billion people. The country has become a key battleground for Meta's ambitions in business messaging and digital payments.

Shah's transition and CRED's future

Kunal Shah will step down as CEO of CRED but retain his personal shareholding in the company. Miten Sampat, who has overseen strategy and finance at CRED since 2020, will serve as interim chief executive effective immediately. CRED's board is working on a longer-term management structure as the company prepares for an eventual initial public offering.

• Meta's investment values CRED at approximately $4.5 billion on a post-money basis, up from a $3.6 billion valuation in May 2025 but below its peak of $6.4 billion in 2022.
• CRED has 17 million monthly active users and had raised more than $1 billion from investors before this round.
• The fresh capital is expected to support growth across CRED's payments, lending, insurance, and wealth businesses.

WhatsApp's next chapter under Shah

Will Cathcart, who led WhatsApp since 2019, oversaw rapid expansion that helped the service reach more than 100 million users in the United States. Under his leadership, WhatsApp launched products such as Communities, Channels, and AI integrations while deepening its focus on business messaging. However, WhatsApp Pay has struggled to match the scale of local rivals PhonePe and Google Pay in India.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement that Shah had built CRED into "one of India's most important technology companies" and brings the "builder mentality and global perspective" needed to run the world's largest messaging app. Shah founded CRED in 2018 after building FreeCharge, one of India's early digital payments startups. He has also backed more than 250 companies as an investor.

The appointment signals Meta's intent to expand WhatsApp beyond messaging into payments, commerce, and business communications, with India as the primary testing ground. Shah's experience building a consumer internet company in India is expected to help unlock WhatsApp's next phase of growth in these areas.