June 22 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms will invest $900 million in Indian fintech startup CRED, valuing it at $4.5 billion, while tapping CRED's founder Kunal Shah to head WhatsApp globally, the companies said on Monday.
India is WhatsApp's largest market, with more than 500 million users, and the platform is expanding beyond messaging into payments and business services in the country.
Will Cathcart, the current head of WhatsApp, will move to a new role within Meta after seven years leading the messaging service, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post. Shah, who founded CRED in 2018, confirmed the announcement.
Meta's investment is one of the largest into India's financial technology sector in recent years. The valuation is higher than the $3.5 billion in CRED's previous funding round in 2025, but lower than its peak of $6.4 billion in 2022.
The deal gives Meta a minority stake in Bengaluru-based CRED without allowing it access to CRED customer data, the Indian company said.
Founded in 2018, CRED operates a members-only platform for consumers with high credit scores, through which it offers products spanning payments, lending, insurance, wealth management and lifestyle services.
The company said it serves 17 million members each month, processes more than 40% of India's credit card bill payments and manages over 240 billion rupees ($2.5 billion) of lending assets for partner financial institutions.
CRED said it would use the fresh capital to accelerate growth, strengthen leadership and institutional capabilities, and expand across product categories.
Miten Sampat, who has led strategy and finance at CRED since 2020, has been appointed interim CEO.
Meta's other high-profile investments in India include Reliance Industries' digital unit Jio Platforms, which filed papers for an initial public offering last week.
($1 = 94.6775 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Ashwin Manikandan in Mumbai; Abinaya V and Surbhi Misra in Bengaluru; Editing by Diti Pujara and Milla Nissi-Prussak)
