India's Cred raises $251m at $4b valuation
Indian credit card rewards company Cred has raised a $251 million Series E round led by Tiger Global Management and Falcon Edge Capital at a post-money valuation of $4 billion.
It is Cred’s third sizeable investment this year. The Series D brought in $215 million in April at a valuation of $2.2 billion, and the Series C closed at $81.2 million in January at a valuation of $800 million. Total funding since inception in 2018 is around $700 million.
Cred’s core offering is an app that provides cash and product rewards to users when they pay their credit card bills. The idea is to help merchants engage with consumers and allow financial institutions to cross-sell.
The service is offered on a club membership basis, requiring full name and mobile number registration plus a credit score check. The user base is said to include 7.5 million members, or about 30% of India’s credit card holding population.
Recent expansions include the launch of a P2P lending platform called Mint in partnership with non-bank lender LiquiLoans. Mint allows individual investors to put in as little as INR100,000 ($1,335) with an option to withdraw at any time and claim returns of up to 9% within one working day.
Gamification has also been recently added to the offering, with a new product called Cred X IPL featuring a competitive leaderboard where users win jackpots based on how many reward points they redeem. Last year, Cred secured a partnership with Indian Premier League (IPL).
Two new investors came in for the Series E - Marshall Wace and Steadfast Venture Capital. They were joined by existing backers DST Global, Insight Partners, Coatue Management, Sofina, RTP Global Advisors, and Dragoneer Investment.
Previous investors include Greenoaks Capital, General Catalyst, Gemini Investment, Hillhouse Capital, RuNet, Ribbit Capital, and Sequoia Capital India. The latter three have supported Cred since its seed round in 2018. Kunal Shah, Cred’s founder, served as an advisor to Sequoia in 2017.
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