WhatsApp will be led by Kunal Shah, the founder of Indian fintech CRED, after Will Cathcart stepped down as head of the messaging app and will take on a new product-building role at Meta.
Meta also led a $900 million financing for CRED, structured as a mix of primary and secondary share purchases that will make Meta a minority investor, in a move that dovetails with its push to grow payments, commerce and business messaging in India, WhatsApp’s largest market with more than 500 million users.
“He has built CRED into one of India’s most important technology companies,” Mark Zuckerberg said.
Cathcart, who ran WhatsApp since 2019, expanded the app beyond private messaging with products such as Communities, Channels and AI integrations and focused on business messaging, while the app’s push into digital payments saw mixed results, gaining traction in India but falling short of local rivals such as PhonePe and Google Pay.
Shah founded CRED in 2018 after building FreeCharge, the startup has about 17 million monthly active users, and Shah will step down as CRED’s chief executive while retaining his personal shareholding as Miten Sampat becomes interim CEO immediately.
Meta’s investment values CRED at about $4.5 billion post-money, the company was last valued at about $3.6 billion in May 2025 and peaked at $6.4 billion in 2022, and CRED said its board is working on a longer-term management structure as it prepares for an eventual initial public offering while using the fresh capital to grow payments, lending, insurance and wealth products.
