Kunal Shah Makes A Return With New Startup ‘Cred’, $30 Mn Seed Capital

This festive season has seen some of India’s most experienced-entrepreneurs return to the Indian startup ecosystem. After Ibibo co-founder Ashish Kashyap announced his return with INDWealth, Freecharge co-founder Kunal Shah announced that he is back in the game with a new entrepreneurial venture.

In a social media post, Kunal Shah announced his new venture Cred— “after 3+ years of playing on the sidelines.”

Having kept Cred in wraps up until now, Kunal Shah explained Cred as “a platform to celebrate and reward the most creditworthy people of India.”

At present, the team is working hard to launch a beta version in a few weeks.

Shah has been a serial entrepreneur with ventures like PaisaBack and the coupon-based app for mobile recharge, Freecharge, launched in 2010.

FreeCharge got a decent exit to Snapdeal for $450 Mn and was later sold to Axis Bank for $60 Mn.

Apart from his own ventures, Kunal Shah has also been an active angel investor and has so far made around 20 startup investments including Innov8, Spinny, Zepo, Unacademy, and Bharat Bazaar among others. Earlier, he had worked in advisory roles with AngelList, Sequoia Capital, and Bennett Coleman and Co. (Times Group).

Cred: The Journey Of 2018

As an entrepreneur who is not afraid to speak his mind and use the Internet to explore market sentiment, Kunal Shah’s Twitter handle has been one his go-to methods of testing out new ideas..

The first hint of the new venture came in January 2018, when Shah tweeted: “After enriching 2016 with YC, 2017 with Sequoia and perpetual insight hunting, excited to startup again in 2018. Tinkering with some ideas in healthcare and education. Onwards and Upwards.”

For the next few months, speculations were rife, industry stalwarts were booming with suggestions and “welcome back” tweets, and Shah played his own game and brought another victory in June 2018.

At the time, reports surfaced that Shah has raised $30 Mn seed funding round led by Sequoia Capital with participation from Russian fund Ru-Net, fintech-focused fund Ribbit Capital, and a few other investors.

Interestingly, if you follow Kunal Shah on twitter or have come across his tweets and responded to his various polls, you have given him insights into the customer world for Cred.

Here’s a quick look into some of the polls and thoughts he has done:

One of Shah’s most popular principles is his Delta 4 theory which states, “Before implementing an idea, one must make sure that the business will be at least Δe = 4 to make it BragWorthy.”

In Kunal’s own terms, the Unique BragWorthy should always be greater than the Unique Selling Point (USP) of the idea. This will save entrepreneurs the trouble of making growth horizontally upward with the help of globalisation, instead of going for vertical intense growth which by far, very few personalities have achieved.

We know Cred is fintech, one of the hottest growth sectors in the startup ecosystem, and we know it’s Kunal Shah’s brainchild. Looks like next few weeks will have some interesting announcements coming up!