CRED’s Founding Team Member Ashray Iyengar Quits, Joins Elevation Capital

Ashray Iyengar, part of the founding team at CRED, has joined the venture capital firm Elevation Capital after spending five years at the fintech unicorn.

“I’m excited to join Elevation Capital to focus on growth investments across consumer and fintech after 5 exciting years at CRED,” said Iyengar in a social media post yesterday. 

According to his LinkedIn timeline, Iyengar exited Cred in March this year.

In his new role, as VP at the venture capital firm, Iyengar will be working with founder and managing partner Ravi Adusumalli, co-managing partner Mukul Arora and partners Mridul Arora and Mayank Khanduja. Iyengar will focus on growth stage bets in consumer tech and fintech space.

Iyengar, an IIT Bombay alumnus, has worked in venture capital before. Before joining CRED in March 2018, Iyengar was an investment analyst at Nexus Venture Partners. Apart from that, he has worked with Proctor & Gamble and also was part of the founding team at HandyHome, which was acquired by Urban Company (earlier UrbanClap) in 2016.

At CRED, Ashray Iyengar joined as the head of the founders’ office, before being elevated to product and business lead in February 2020. From February 2022 onward, he took strategy and corporate development roles.

“My time at CRED has been nothing short of life-changing. It’s been a privilege to have been along for this ride – thanks, Kunal Shah, Miten Sampat, and my CRED team,” he added.

Iyengar exit from CRED comes at a time when optimism around the Kunal Shah-led fintech unicorn is high. The startup reported a total revenue of INR 1,484 Cr in FY23, a 251.6% increase from INR 422 Cr in the previous fiscal year. Meanwhile, losses reached INR 1,347 Cr, up 5% thanks to expenses growing to INR 2,831.9 Cr from INR 1,702 Cr.

The fintech unicorn has also launched multiple products over the past few months to diversify its revenue streams, with the latest – CRED garage – coming last week. Since the launch of its UPI payments feature, the startup has climbed to become the fourth largest UPI app in the country, behind only PhonePe, Google Pay and Paytm who hold more than 95% share of the UPI market.

Beyond payments, CRED has also been working to improve its lending play, though a recent bid to acquire a majority stake in the Kunal Shah-owned NBFC Newtap Finance was blocked by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Update | 11th October, 12:36 IST

The story has been updated to include the month of Iyengar’s departure from CRED.