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Samreen Ahmad · · 6 min readMeet the Indian founder that Meta bets can finally crack WhatsApp
Kunal Shah has built products for both ends of India’s economic spectrum.
In Shah’s own words, Cred, which he founded in 2018, caters to India’s affluent 1% by rewarding credit card users for paying their bills on time.
Cred founder Kunal Shah / Photo credit: Cred
Shah also co-founded Freecharge in 2010, when paying mobile and utility bills online in India meant navigating unreliable websites and payment systems. He simplified this process into a single app and helped bring millions of Indians online.
“He has built for both Indias,” says Jimish Jobanputra, co-founder of content monetization app CueLinks.
Shah will now build for the world. Meta has invested US$900 million into Cred and named him global head of WhatsApp, a platform with more than 3 billion users. It has nearly 850 million in India alone.
Beyond creating companies, Shah has emerged as one of India’s most influential startup mentors and angel investors. He has served as an advisor at Y Combinator and Sequoia and invested in 298 startups across India and Southeast Asia, according to Tracxn.
Among founders and investors, there is little disagreement on one point: Meta is probably not buying Cred for its financial performance. The deal looks like a bet on Shah himself.
It’s “more of getting Kunal as CEO of WhatsApp than anything else,” says Abhishek Goyal, co-founder of Tracxn.
Neither Meta nor Cred responded to Tech in Asia’s requests for comment.
What is Meta really buying?
Cred has built a strong brand and reported operating revenue of US$290 million in FY 2025, a 16% year-on-year increase. Its operating losses narrowed 51% to US$31.5 million in that period.
Those are numbers that would not materially affect Meta’s financials, which reported a revenue of US$56.3 billion in the first quarter of 2026.
Image credit: Shutterstock/ DenPhotos
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