Kunal Shah's CRED raises $80 Mn in Series C round led by DST Global Partners

Credit card payments app Cred has raised $80 million in an equity financing round led by DST Global Partners along with the participation of Sequoia Capital, Ribbit Capital and Tiger Global, a report said. All of them are existing backers of the Bengaluru-based two-year-old startup.

According to the TechCrunch report, the Kunal Shah-led firm has reached a valuation of $800 million after the fresh tranche. This is a significant jump in CRED’s valuation as compared to the $450 million it was valued at last year when it had raised $120 million in its Series B round in August.

This is the third round of funding for the fintech startup which had launched its operations in November 2018. The Kunal Shah-led startup had raised one of the largest Series A rounds ever by an Indian startup, collecting $30 million in its seed funding round.

CRED is a credit card payments platform for premium consumers which lets cardholders pay bills through its app, and get a bouquet of benefits via Cred coins. The virtual coins can be redeemed across coffee shops, movie theatres, e-commerce shopping, among others. It claims to have over 1,300 brands as members, including Samsung, Myntra, and Curefit.

The fresh fundraising comes on the heels of CRED’s claimed jump in scale of operations during the Indian Premier League where it was an official partner after signing a three year deal with the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

The fiscal ended in March 2020 would be the first full year of operations for the fintech startup, with a lot of eyes on its annual results, which haven’t been filed yet. The company was only operational for five months in FY19, and had negative operating cash flow of Rs 117.84 crore in its efforts to develop a niche product for wealthy credit card spenders in India.

CRED had recorded zero revenue from its operations with an overall burn of Rs 64 crore in the fiscal year 2018-19. 

At the start of FY21, the company has rolled out two new lending products — CRED RentPay and CRED Stash. While CRED RentPay allows its users to pay recurring household expenses and bills, and monthly rent payments using credit cards, CRED Stash offers an instant credit line, through a pilot with IDFC First Bank.