Meta appoints CRED founder Kunal Shah as WhatsApp chief in $900 million investment deal
The move positions Shah to lead WhatsApp’s expansion in India, while the $900 million injection values the fintech firm at $4.5 billion post-money.
Meta has appointed Kunal Shah, the founder of Indian fintech company CRED, as the new chief executive of WhatsApp. The appointment marks a significant leadership transition for the messaging platform, succeeding Will Cathcart, who is stepping down after nearly seven years at the helm. Cathcart will move to a new product-building role within the broader Meta organisation.
Shah will assume the WhatsApp role immediately, requiring him to step down as chief executive of CRED. However, he will retain his personal shareholding in the fintech firm. Miten Sampat, who has overseen strategy and finance at CRED since 2020, will serve as interim chief executive during the transition period.
Concurrently, Meta is investing $900 million in CRED through a combination of primary and secondary share purchases. The transaction values the company at approximately $4.5 billion on a post-money basis. This represents an increase from CRED’s valuation of about $3.6 billion in a funding round in May 2025, which was itself below the firm’s peak valuation of $6.4 billion in 2022.
The leadership change underscores Meta’s strategic focus on India, which is WhatsApp’s largest market with more than 500 million users. The country is a critical battleground for Meta’s ambitions in business messaging and digital payments, areas central to WhatsApp’s next phase of growth beyond its global base of over three billion people.
Cathcart, who has led WhatsApp since 2019, oversaw rapid expansion that included the launch of Communities, Channels, and AI integrations. While WhatsApp Pay gained traction in India, it has struggled to match the scale of local rivals such as PhonePe and Google Pay, leaving substantial room for growth in the payments sector.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that Shah had built CRED into one of India’s most important technology companies and possessed the builder mentality and global perspective required to run the app. Shah founded CRED in 2018, following his earlier work building FreeCharge, and has since backed more than 250 companies across India’s technology and financial services sectors.
The fresh capital is expected to support growth across CRED’s payments, lending, insurance, and wealth businesses. CRED, which has 17 million monthly active users, is preparing for an eventual initial public offering, with its board and leadership team working on a longer-term management structure.
