Tiger Global in talks to back Kunal Shah’s Cred

BENGALURU: New York-based Tiger Global Management is in advanced discussions to back Cred, a fintech company started by serial entrepreneur Kunal Shah, which is raising upto $100 million at a $400 million valuation, said three sources familiar with the matter. The round is expected to be led by existing backer

Sequoia Capital

India and Ribbit Capital besides China’s Hillhouse Capital in less than one-year-old startup, which rewards customers paying credit card bills through its mobile application.


The deal will be one of the rare consumer-facing bets by Tiger Global, which has been actively scouting for deals in business to business (B2B) startups and software companies. The firm, which was an early backer of Flipkart and Ola, is likely to invest $15-20 million in the round but the amount is not yet finalised.

“The company is still finalising allocations to various investors and may raise less than $100 million finally. They may also include Hillhouse Capital as one of the new investors,” said one of the sources mentioned above.

Shah and Tiger Global declined to comment when contacted by TOI. Shah had earlier started recharge and bill payments platform Freecharge, which was acquired by online marketplace Snapdeal for $400 million back in 2015 in what was the largest acquisitions in the startup space at that time.

Last year, Cred had raised $25 million led by Sequoia Capital India and Ribbit Capital along with RPT Ventures,

Yuri Milner

’s Apoletto Asia and China’s Morningside Ventures at a valuation of about $70 million.

Cred along with online stock brokerage Upstox and neo-banking startup Open are the other fin-tech deals that Tiger Global deals that the firm is working on.

The investor interest Cred, which launched the in November, comes as the credit card space has been seeing a slew of moves from India’s largest internet companies. Last week, ride-hailing major Ola announced a credit card with SBI while mobile payments major Paytm launched a credit card along with Visa and Citibank. Amazon India has also launched a credit card with ICICI Bank while Flipkart is also planning to launch one.

The idea for these companies is to lock-in their most affluent customers with incentives and also get insights on their spending elsewhere, as all these companies build a payment business.