NEW DELHI, June 22: The popular social media platform WhatsApp will now have an Indian boss. Meta has appointed the CRED founder Kunal Shah as the new head of WhatsApp succeeding Will Cathcart, who has led the messaging platform for about seven years, and is now shifted for a new role focused on artificial intelligence initiatives.
The appointment of the 47-year old Kunal Shah as the new head was part of a deal in which Meta had invested $900 million, approximately Rs 8,550 crore, in CRED as part of the startup’s Series H funding round. Under the terms of the agreement, Meta will acquire a minority stake of roughly 20 per cent in CRED. The investment values the company at Rs 43,239 crore, or around $4.5 billion, on a post-money basis. The funding is a combination of primary and secondary share purchases. Shah will step down as Chief Executive Officer of CRED and join Meta’s global leadership team.
“Kunal built Cred into one of India’s most important technology companies, and he brings the kind of builder mentality and global perspective that will serve him well in running the world’s biggest massaging app,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a post. Kunal Shah was recruited by Meta’s Chief Product Officer Chris Cox, who was seeking an entrepreneur from a country where WhatsApp already has a strong foothold.
Cox called Shah “one of India’s most respected entrepreneurs, a serious thinker, and a deeply good person,” according to a statement shared by a Meta spokesperson. Shah currently lives in Bengaluru, but will relocate to the Bay Area in the US to work out of Meta’s Menlo Park, California, headquarters.
Kunal brings a deep understanding of how WhatsApp is woven into people’s daily lives, alongside a fresh perspective from outside Meta and the founder mentality that built WhatsApp in the first place,” read a statement by Meta announcing the move. It described him as “one of India’s most respected entrepreneurs” who has record of “building products that people love at scale.”
Cathcart wrote on
Kunal Shah made a long post about his past career and future plans.
Meta has made several investments in India over the past few years, one of its most important markets and a major hub for WhatsApp. The social media giant invested $5.7 billion into Jio Platforms in 2020, taking a 10% stake in the company as part of a push to help increase commerce on WhatsApp. It also announced a deal earlier this month to lease its first AI data center in India.
Founded in 2018, Cred offers consumers perks and rewards tied to their credit card repayments. Its app, which has 17 million monthly users, can also analyze and track spending, according to its website. The company raised $75 million last year in a Series G funding round led by Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC, according to IBS Intelligence.
As part of its investment, Meta will provide both primary and secondary capital, according to the press release, meaning it will purchase shares from some of Cred’s existing investors. Shah will join Meta full-time, stepping away from Cred, though he will remain a shareholder. Miten Sampat, an executive leading company strategy, will take over as interim CEO while the board reviews Cred’s leadership structure with an eye toward an “eventual IPO,” the press release said.
Meta is not taking a board seat and will not receive access to Cred customer information, according to the Indian company. Miten Sampat, the interim CEO of CRED, said 1.7 crore creditworthy Indians trust CRED with improving their relationship with money. “We have a generational opportunity to build on Kunal’s vision and compound consistently towards becoming a public company. I’m excited to take CRED forward in its next chapter. We are just getting started.”
(Rohit Kumar)
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