Meta is in advanced talks to invest in Cred, with founder Kunal Shah potentially taking a WhatsApp leadership role. A deal could reshape India payment strategy.
Meta Platforms is in advanced talks to invest in Cred, the Indian fintech that rewards credit-card bill payments, Indian business media reported. The discussions also include the possibility of founder Kunal Shah taking a leadership role at Meta, potentially overseeing WhatsApp.
The negotiations are exploratory. Specific terms remain unconfirmed. Two scenarios are reportedly on the table: a minority investment of tens of millions of dollars into Cred at a valuation around $4 billion, or a full acquisition of the startup at a price below that same figure. Either path would give Meta a deeper foothold in India's digital payments market, where its WhatsApp Pay service has struggled to gain traction.
Cred, founded in 2018, targets affluent consumers who hold credit cards. The platform peaked at a $6.4 billion valuation in 2022 after riding the fintech boom. By 2025, that valuation had declined to roughly $3.5 billion, a drop of more than 45%. A deal at $4 billion would represent a modest premium to its most recent round.
India's payments market runs on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), a government-backed real-time transfer system that is free and ubiquitous. Meta has tried to crack that market through WhatsApp Pay, facing regulatory caps on user onboarding that limit its scale relative to rivals Google Pay and PhonePe. Shah, who previously founded FreeCharge and sold it to Snapdeal, is widely seen as a strong operator who could accelerate WhatsApp's payments strategy. His appointment would signal a deeper commitment to building payments infrastructure rather than just running a messaging app.
Meta's Alpha Score sits at 57 out of 100, a Moderate rating, according to AlphaScala's proprietary model. The stock changed hands at $574.99 on Monday, down 0.39%. The talks add a layer of strategic uncertainty for investors tracking Meta's push beyond advertising revenue. An earlier report valued a possible investment at $900 million and a $4.5 billion valuation, a figure not corroborated by either party and likely tied to a separate, earlier round reported by AlphaScala.
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