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 boss 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 US$3.5 billion in Cred’s previous funding round in 2025, but lower than its peak of US$6.4 billion in 2022.
The deal gives Meta a minority stake in Bengaluru-based Cred without allowing it access to 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 percent of India’s credit card bill payments and manages over US$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. (Reuters)
