[Funding alert] Kunal Shah's CRED raises $251 M at $4 B valuation

CRED, a fintech unicorn founded by Kunal Shah, has raised $251 million in a Series E round of funding at a valuation of $4.01 billion.

The round, which was co-led by existing backers Tiger Global and Falcon Edge, saw new investors— Marshall Wace and Steadfast— bet on the startup. Other existing investors such as DST Global, Insight Partners, Coatue, Sofina, RTP, and Dragoneer also increased their investments in CRED, according to sources.

The latest funding round almost doubles CRED's valuation. The startup turned into a unicorn in April this year at a $2.2 billion valuation with an infusion of $215 million from Falcon Edge and Coatue Management.

In January, CRED was valued at around $800 million.

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This is the third such fundraise for CRED so far in 2021, with the startup securing fresh capital in the month of January followed by another round in April.

Kunal Shah is one of the leading entrepreneurs in the Indian startup ecosystem as well as an angel investor. He had earlier founded the financial services company Freecharge which was then acquired by Snapdeal in 2015 in a deal estimated at $400 million.

Founded in 2018, CRED is a credit card payment platform that rewards users with points for paying their bills. It has expanded its portfolio of services to include rent payments and personal loans as it seeks to become a full-fledged financial services provider.

CRED also launched Mint, a peer-to-peer lending product where the users can lend money at a 9 percent interest rate.

This funding round in CRED comes at a time when investors have increased their bets on the Indian startup ecosystem. According to Yourstory Research, the first nine months of 2021 saw an inflow of $23 billion across 1,000 deals, resulting in the creation of 33 unicorns.