Meta is betting on India for WhatsApp’s subsequent chapter, naming entrepreneur Kunal Shah to guide the messaging app and succeed Will Cathcart, who’s stepping down after practically seven years on the helm to tackle a brand new product-building function on the firm.
The transfer comes alongside a Meta-led $900 million financing for Indian fintech giant CRED, structured via a mix of main and secondary share purchases. The deal will make Meta a minority investor within the CRED, which stated Shah will step down as chief government whereas retaining his private shareholding.
India is WhatsApp’s largest market, with more than 500 million users accounting for a big share of the app’s international base of over three billion individuals. The nation has additionally emerged as a key battleground for Meta’s ambitions in enterprise messaging and digital funds, areas seen as essential to WhatsApp’s subsequent section of development.
Cathcart, who has led WhatsApp since 2019, oversaw a interval of fast enlargement that helped the service turn out to be one of many world’s hottest messaging apps, together with with greater than 100 million customers in the US. Below his management, WhatsApp expanded past personal messaging with the launch of merchandise similar to Communities, Channels, and AI integrations, whereas deepening its concentrate on enterprise messaging.
However efforts by WhatsApp to push into digital funds have delivered combined outcomes. Whereas WhatsApp Pay gained traction in India, the service struggled to duplicate the dimensions and engagement achieved by native rivals similar to PhonePe and Google Pay, leaving vital room for development in one of many world’s largest funds markets.
Meta is betting that Shah’s expertise constructing a shopper web firm in India may help unlock WhatsApp’s subsequent section of development.
In an announcement, CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated Shah had constructed CRED into “one among India’s most essential expertise firms” and introduced the “builder mentality and international perspective” wanted to run the world’s largest messaging app.
The appointment comes as Meta seeks to broaden WhatsApp’s enterprise past messaging, significantly in areas similar to funds, commerce and enterprise communications. India, as WhatsApp’s largest market, has been central to these efforts.
In 2018, Shah based CRED, a fintech platform with 17 million month-to-month lively customers, after earlier constructing FreeCharge, one among India’s early digital funds startups. Past his working roles, he has turn out to be one among India’s most distinguished startup traders, backing greater than 250 firms and serving in advisory and business management positions throughout the nation’s expertise and monetary providers sectors.
Meta’s funding values CRED at about $4.5 billion on a post-money foundation. The startup was final valued at about $3.6 billion in a funding spherical in Could 2025, beneath its peak valuation of $6.4 billion in 2022. Earlier than its Sequence F spherical, the corporate had raised greater than $1 billion from traders.
As a part of the transition, Miten Sampat, who has overseen technique and finance at CRED since 2020, will take over as interim chief government with speedy impact. Shah will retain his shareholding within the firm after stepping away from day-to-day operations.
CRED stated its board and management group have been engaged on a longer-term administration construction as the corporate prepares for an eventual preliminary public providing, with the contemporary capital anticipated to help development throughout its funds, lending, insurance coverage, and wealth companies.
Whenever you buy via hyperlinks in our articles, we could earn a small fee. This doesn’t have an effect on our editorial independence.
