Fintech startup CRED has raised $251 million in its Series E investment round, which values the company at $4.01 billion. The round was co-led by existing investors Tiger Global and Falconedge. Two new investors - Marshall Wace and Steadfast - joined the cap table. DST Global, Insight Partners, Coatue, Sofina, RTP, and Dragoneer increased their investments in CRED with this round.
With the latest fundraise, the valuation of the Bengaluru-based startup has almost doubled from $2.2 billion in April when it had raised $215 million. As per reports, the company aims to use the funds to increase its existing range of products and expand financial services offerings for customers.
After the April fundraise, founder and CEO Kunal Shah had said in an email to employees, “While valuation is a milestone that many celebrate, we view it as a responsibility and an opportunity to create member value. We’ve grown rapidly over the past 2.5 years, with 35% of premium credit card holders and processing 22% of all credit card payments in India on a monthly basis. As the credit card category continues to grow rapidly in India, our opportunity is to imagine new use-cases, empower CRED members to use credit responsibly, and reward them for good financial behaviour.”
Kunal Shah launched CRED in 2018 three years after he sold off Freecharge to Snapdeal for $400 million. CRED started off as a credit card repayment platform but has now diversified into e-commerce, wealth management, digital payments, bank lending, and peer-to-peer (P2P) lending.
The company says it has over 1,300 brands including Samsung, Myntra, and Curefit as members and claims to have onboarded 3 million customers over the last two years.
A recent PwC report has revealed that at $4.6 billion, the Indian fintech industry registered a nearly fourfold increase in fundraising in the first nine months of 2021 compared to the year-ago period.