The founder of Indian startup Cred, Kunal Shah, will be global head of the most used daily product in the world (2.3B+ DAU), WhatsApp! Let’s take a look at the business of Cred: Cred’s valuation has flip-flopped from its peak but in 8yrs, they built a $4.5B biz with ~1000 employees doing $333M/yr growing 17%yoy, with Meta buying 20% of it for $900M. Kunal says they’ve hit they’re first quarter of operating profit (exact loss numbers for FY26 here are speculative) but the business is definitely trending up. Cred has ~17M users and 12.6M monthly transacting users at $26 per user per year ARPU (~₹2500). 1% of Indians use Cred, 1 in 3 of the country’s credit card users. Credit card penetration in India is 3-4% vs say 66% in the US, 50%+ in high income and 25%+ for other lower/middle income countries; perhaps if that grew more quickly, the business would have an even better outcome. When I analyzed it in 2022, I was too harsh about its future prospects. The business has grown significantly since with a path to sustainability. More importantly, this is the first time I’ve seen a non-silicon valley founder catapulted to lead such a critical product. Think what you may of Cred, it was a big bet that’s come off quite well. And this appointment is just testament to Kunal’s tenacity as a founder and leader.