Kunal Shah, founder and CEO of CRED, announced on June 22, 2026, that he is stepping down from his operating role to join Meta as the global head of WhatsApp. Concurrently, Meta is investing $900 million in CRED for a roughly 20% stake, valuing the company at $4.5 billion post-money, according to Bloomberg.
Shah shared his journey from exiting FreeCharge in 2018 to launching CRED with $1 million of personal capital, aiming to reward users for paying credit card bills on time. Meta’s investment comes with a commitment to no access to CRED’s member data. Shah will replace Will Cathcart, who led WhatsApp since 2019. Shah thanked Cathcart for scaling the platform and facilitating the transition. Miten Sampat, CRED’s strategy and finance lead since 2020, remains in his role.
Meta’s move underscores its ambition to expand WhatsApp’s commerce capabilities in India, where the app has over 500 million users but WhatsApp Pay trails competitors like PhonePe and Google Pay on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). Shah’s payments and lending expertise from CRED aligns with Meta’s goal to unlock WhatsApp’s potential in digital payments and commerce.
Will Cathcart, who joined Meta in 2010 and led WhatsApp since 2019, will hand over leadership to Shah. Meta’s $900 million investment in CRED marks a significant minority stake, with the company valued at $4.5 billion post-money, per Bloomberg data.