Facebook parent Meta Platforms has chosen Cred founder Kunal Shah to be the next head of the WhatsApp messaging service. The Indian fintech service head will succeed Will Cathcart, who has led the app since 2019.
Meta will invest $900 million in Cred, which, according to Bloomberg, will give the Mark Zuckerberg-led company a roughly 20 per cent stake in the Indian start-up. Shah’s company has an app that rewards customers for paying their credit card bills on time.
The Meta CEO has said in a social media post that Shah “brings the kind of builder mentality and global perspective that will serve him well in running the world’s biggest messaging app”.
Unlike heads of most tech start-ups, Shah has a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Mumbai’s Wilson College and joined a management course at NMIMS in 2003. After a year, he dropped out to pursue his entrepreneurial dreams.
During Cathcart’s time at WhatsApp, the messaging service’s user base more than doubled. He will transition into a new role within the company where he will “build new products from the ground up”.
Shah’s immediate tasks will include bringing new revenue streams for WhatsApp as well as integrating AI agents into the service. Having a hand in his recruitment is Meta’s chief product officer Chris Cox, who wanted an entrepreneur from a country where WhatsApp already has a strong presence. Cox said Shah is “one of India’s most respected entrepreneurs and a prolific voice for how the apps we build make a positive difference in people’s lives”.
Meta is continuing its investment spree. Last year, it invested over $14.3 billion in Scale AI and recruited its founder, Alexandr Wang, to take over the company’s AI lab.
Cred, founded in 2018, has an app with 17 million monthly users.
Shah’s previous start-up, FreeCharge, pioneered online payments in India over a decade ago. He is also an angel investor, with investments in over 250 start-ups including leading unicorns.
Shah currently lives in Bangalore but will relocate to the Bay Area to work out of Meta’s Menlo Park, California headquarters. At Cred, Miten Sampat will take over as interim CEO.
