CRED raises $215 mn, enters Unicorn club at $2.2 bn valuation

By Leandra Monteiro

FinTech start-up, CRED, recently said it has closed $215 million as part of its Series D funding round, at a post-money valuation of $2.2 billion, making it the latest entrant to India’s unicorn league. Falcon Edge Capital and Coatue Management LLP have led this round, while Insight Partners has joined CRED cap table. Existing investors DST Global, RTP Global, Tiger Global, Greenoaks Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group, and Sofina have also participated in this round.

With this latest fund raise CRED’s post-money valuation touched $2.2 billion. CRED will also offer its team another ESOP buyback opportunity, with a cumulative value of $5 million. This comes after the FinTech raised $81 million, as a part of its Series C round, which brought it a valuation of $806 million, in January, this year.

According to media reports, Cred founder and CEO Kunal Shah shared the development with employees, “I’m very happy to share that three months after our Series C, continued interest from leading institutional investors has resulted in us closing a Series D. Falcon Edge Capital (new investor) and Coatue Management LLP (existing investor) will lead this round, while Insight Partners (new investor) joins our cap table. Existing investors DST Global, RTP Global, Tiger Global, Greenoaks Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group, and Sofina are also investing in this round. With this, we have raised $215 million, at a post-money valuation of $2.2 billion.”

“We’ve grown rapidly over the past 2.5 years, with 35 percent of premium credit card holders and processing 22 percent 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,” Shah told employees.

CRED has also recently introduced new services such as CRED Pay to help with easy checkouts on its in-app commerce platform.