Dreamplug Technologies Pvt. Ltd.d/b/aCRED is an Indian
fintech company, based in
Bangalore.[2][3][4] Founded in 2018 by Kunal Shah,[5][6] it is a reward-based credit card payments app.[7] Cred also lets users make house rent payments[8] and provides short-term
credit lines.[9] Cred has received criticism for being overvalued and lacking a sound monetization strategy.[10][11]
History
Cred was founded in 2018 by Kunal Shah. By 2021, the company had onboarded over 5.9 million users and processed about 20% of all credit card bill payments in India.[12]
Funding and financial results
Funding
Cred raised funding from
DST Global,[13]Sequoia Capital (India),[14][15] and
Tiger Global,[16] among other investors, through the four rounds of private funding so far.[17] Cred posted losses of ₹360.31 crore in the 2020 fiscal year (FY20),[18] caused primarily due to high expenditure on marketing and advertising.[19]
In October 2021, Cred started to seek new investors, reporting a $5.5 billion valuation, up from $2.2 billion recorded in April 2021.[20][21]
Kunal Shah is also an investor in an AI led adtech influencer marketing platform Kofluence. The company had raised a pre-series funding of $4 Million as of 8 February 2022.[22]
In June 2022, CRED raised $80 million in a Series F
funding round led by Singapore's
sovereign wealth fund, GIC. The Series F funding round will value the company at around $6.4 billion.[23]
DST Global, Tiger Global Management, and seven others
Series C
$81M
$806 Million
Coatue, Insight Partners, and nine others
Series D
$215M
$2.2 Billion
Tiger Global Management, Marshall Wace, and eight others
Series E
$251M
$4.01 Billion
GIC Singapore, Tiger Global Management, and three others
Series F
$80M
$6.4 Billion
Marketing
Cred became the official sponsor for the
Indian Premier League for four years from 2020 to 2023.[25] In 2021, Cred's advertising content and videos, made in-house featuring Indian celebrities,[26][27][28] generated significant discourse in news and social media[29][30][31][32] due to its peculiarity, which was both criticized[33] and praised.[34]
In December 2022, Cred acquired a 100% stake in CreditVidya that offers
lending as a service. This is to allow Cred to expand its customer base and ecosystem as CreditVidya, which caters to customers who do not have a credit score.[35]
In July 2023, Cred
acquihired savings and investment platform Spenny and expanded in the lending and
wealthtech space further.[36]
In February 2024, Cred acquired online
wealth managementstartup Kuvera for an undisclosed amount. With this acquisition, Cred entered the into the mutual funds market.[37]