Exclusive: CRED in talks to raise new funds at over $5.5 Bn valuation

With 38 companies that turned unicorn this year at last count, fundraising may not be big news anymore, but several companies such as Apna and OfBusiness have gone even further in the year, raising three back to back rounds in 2021. 

CRED is set to join the list. 

CRED is in late-stage talks to raise a new round from new and existing investors, said two people aware of the details of the transaction.

“Some new investors from the Middle East region along with internal investors are in late-stage conversation to invest around $250 million in CRED,” said one of the people requesting anonymity as talks are still private.

The talks have emerged at a time when CRED is also in talks to acquire Times Internet-owned Dineout and debt investment platform WintWealth. Sources emphasised that the proceeds will be used to chase inorganic growth.

“The terms of the deal are in the final stage of negotiation and CRED will be valued anywhere between $5.5 to 6 billion,” said the person quoted above. The company was valued at $4.01 billion during its latest round in October.

CRED has declined to comment on the story.

Caveat: The terms of the deal may change. The early-stage talks of the new round was reported by TechCrunch in October.

CRED will join Razorpay and Meesho who are also in talks to corner new rounds at valuations over $5 billion. Dream11, PharmEasy, Postman and Swiggy are the other startups whose valuation passed the $5 billion mark in 2021. 

Backed by the likes of Falcon Edge, Tiger Global, DST Global, Insight Partners and Coatue among others, the Kunal Shah-led venture has raised $466 million in 2021 and $546 million since last December.

CRED is a credit card payments app with a direct to the consumer (D2C) marketplace and P2P lending via CRED Mint. The company claims to have 22% of the overall credit card users on its platform, with a higher share by value. 

While the company is yet to file an annual financial statement for FY21, it had projected a 208X growth in its operating revenues to Rs 108 crore during the fiscal year ending March 2021. Three-year-old company’s expenses are estimated to surge by about 79% to Rs 677 crore in FY21 from Rs 378.4 crore in FY20.