Tech news in 3 minutes
WhatsApp gets new chief as Meta taps India’s CRED founder Kunal Shah, and invests $900M in startup
Meta is betting on India for WhatsApp’s next chapter, naming entrepreneur Kunal Shah to lead the messaging app, succeeding Will Cathcart, who is stepping down after nearly seven years to take on a new product-building role. The move coincides with a Meta-led $900 million financing for Indian fintech giant CRED, structured through primary and secondary share purchases, making Meta a minority investor. Shah will step down as CRED’s CEO but retain his personal shareholding. India is WhatsApp’s largest market, with over 500 million users out of its global base of more than three billion. The country is key to Meta’s ambitions in business messaging and digital payments, areas critical to WhatsApp’s next phase of growth. Under Cathcart’s leadership since 2019, WhatsApp expanded with products like Communities, Channels, and AI integrations, and deepened its focus on business messaging. However, WhatsApp Pay has had mixed results in India, trailing local rivals PhonePe and Google Pay. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Shah built CRED into “one of India’s most important technology companies” and brings a “builder mentality and global perspective” to run the world’s largest messaging app. Shah founded CRED in 2018, a fintech platform with 17 million monthly active users, after earlier building FreeCharge. He has also become a prominent startup investor, backing over 250 companies. Meta’s investment values CRED at about $4.5 billion post-money, up from a $3.6 billion valuation in May 2025 but below its 2022 peak of $6.4 billion. Miten Sampat, CRED’s strategy and finance head since 2020, will serve as interim CEO. CRED’s board is working on a longer-term management structure as the company prepares for an eventual IPO, with the fresh capital expected to support growth in payments, lending, insurance, and wealth businesses.