CRED, a limited credit card management and bill payments platform, has raised $81 million in its Series C round at a post-money valuation of $806 million. Existing CRED investor DST Global led the round, along with Sequoia Capital, Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global, and General Catalyst. In addition, Sofina, Coatue and Satyan Gajwani of Times Internet also invested in this round.
In the process, existing and former employees have liquidated their Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOPs), which are collectively worth $1.2 million (Rs 9 crore). The ESOP buyback was completed on Jan 01, 2021.
This is the first ESOP liquidity program initiated by CRED, two years into its operations. Employees who hold vested stocks were eligible to sell up to 50 per cent of their vested ESOP shares in the company.
“As we raise funds to support our next phase of growth, it's important to acknowledge the role that employees have played in our success. We are committed to enabling wealth-creation opportunities for them and have allocated 10% of our captable allocated for ESOPs even at the Series C stage. I am grateful for their conviction, as well as that of our investors, and am focused on creating value for them as the product and business evolves,” says Kunal Shah, Founder, CRED.
The company said in a statement that CRED has grown to have over 5.9 million individuals with a median credit score of 830 in two years.
CRED also claims to process 20% of all credit card bill payments in India with over 35% of premium credit card holders in India being on CRED, and members spending 2X of the average credit card user in India.
“This premium member base has made CRED an attractive proposition for hundreds of merchants and financial institutions intending to engage the creditworthy community. The recently launched CRED Pay offering takes the CRED experience to platforms of online merchants, who offer instant, one-click credit card payments for CRED members,” the company said in a statement.